American grandmaster Gata Kamsky defeated India's grandmaster Anand Viswanathan in their sixth game in the second round of the International World Chess Federation (FIDE) quarterfinals.
Anand now leads Kamsky 3 1/2 to 2 1/2, with two games to be played.Veteran Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman drew in his fifth game against Russia's Valery Salov, and Russian grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik and Belarussian Boris Gelfand adjourned their sixth match after 60 moves, with Gelfand in an advantageous position.
Timman now leads 2 1/2 points to 1 1/2, but the Russian grandmaster stands a chance when they resume a game adjourned earlier in his favor at Sanghi Nagark. Kramnik and Gelfand are level at 2 1/2 points.
Anand, Kramnik and Kamsky are also taking part in the elimination rounds of the Professional Chess Association (PCA), which was formed last year after world champion Gary Kasparov led a rebellion against FIDE.
The PCA cycle will determine a challenger to Kasparov.
The FIDE quarterfinals match had a top prize of $150,000.
In their game, after missing a tactical shot in midgame, the 20-year-old Kamsky bounced back and forced Anand to resign in the 45th move to earn his first win in six games.
Six grandmasters are taking part in the 17-day tournament sponsored by FIDE. Three will qualify for the $500,000 semifinal round. The grandmasters play eight matches with their opponents.
- SLUMP - It's a long, long time from March to July, as the FIDE world champion Anatoly Karpov can testify. He produced one of his greatest triumphs last spring in the Linares International Tournament in Spain. It was one of the strongest tournaments ever held, but Karpov hasn't done anything notable since.
Indeed, his latest underachievement has been to tie for fourth-to-seventh places with Artur Yusupov, Aleksei Dreyev and Victor Korchnoi with 4 1/2 points at the Dortmund International Tournament in Germany in late July.
Top honors went to Jeroen Piket of the Netherlands, first with 6 1/2 points; Michael Adams of England, second with 5 1/2 points; and Vladimir Yepishin, third with 5 points.
It was Adams who started Karpov on his downward path in Dortmund by incisively outplaying him in the first round on July 15. It isn't often one sees Karpov take this kind of mauling.
- SPEEDY? - Reminded after losing the recent Intel Grand Prix Final to Vladimir Kramnik that he was still the best player in the world, Gary Kasparov retorted, "Yes, but not in speed chess."
Fast chess is, indeed, a great leveler, but probably a larger factor in his New York performance was the world champion's poor form. Experts were struck by how uncharacteristically grim and subdued he seemed at the board, and his play clearly was not up to par.
After drawing the first game, he played sluggishly in the second to lose the game and match. Later, he candidly confessed to a "lack of confidence" as a result of missing an easy win in game one.
"I'm not very happy about the outcome," he told the chess columnist Shelby Lyman. "Kasparov clearly has been struggling at the board," Lyman observed.
Annotating a previous tournament game he won in March, Kramnik writes, "Our joint analysis (after the game) served to confirm his bad form. Usually, I remain a mere spectator while he demonstrates an enormous number of variations with speed and precision. But this time his ideas were not good. His lack of concentration was already evident during the game . . . He played some games well but failed in decisive moments."
Kasparov has had bad streaks before. (See above about Karpov.) Typically, he gathers himself and comes back with a super strong performance.