The United States Chess Federation - Decisive Start in Morelia

Decisive Start in Morelia

By Jennifer Shahade
February 17, 2008
Morelia,Mexico Photo Cathy Rogers, 2007 The Morelia-Linares eight player round robin (Feb.15-March 7) started out with a surprising number of decisive games. Veselin Topalov and Vassily Ivanchuk lead with 1.5/2. Top seed Vishy Anand was involved in two hyper-sharp games, first a win against Alexei Shirov on the Black side of a Sicilian and then a loss to Levon Aronian on the white side of the Marshall. 1637 1634 Peter Leko--who prognosticator Greg Shahade gave a 50% chance to lead the tournament in draws -- is also off to a decisive start although his games were not quite as exciting as Anand's. In round one, he scored a positional win over Radjabov on the White side of the Sveshnikov. 1635 In round two, Leko lost to Ivanchuk's Ruy Lopez. The game was distinguished by an unusual middlegame material imbalance- two rooks for a queen. However, the most relevant factor in Ivanchuk's win turned out to be Leko's traditionally weak Ruy Lopez pawns. 1633 In a Nimzo-Indian endgame, Aronian's rook was snagged by Topalov's two powerful bishops. 1636 Morelia-Linares (February 15-March 7) Standings after two rounds 1-2- Vassily Ivanchuk and Veselin Topalov -1.5 3-6- Levon Aronian, Vishy Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Peter Leko- 1 7-8- Alexei Shirov and Teimour Radjabov-.5 You can watch the games 1-7 live on the Internet Chess Club at 4:30 EST. Also check out the official website and CLO's Morelia-Linares Predictions.