Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Instant classic


Wow. Today, in round four of the Corus Steel supergrandmaster event in Wijk aan Zee, Vishy Anand just played an amazing game. He beat Levon Aronian with Black in only 23 moves with one of the most bizarre sacrificial attacks I've ever seen.


Unfortunately, Chess Flash seems to be down this morning.  But you can play through this brilliancy (trust me, it's worth the trouble!) and follow the other Round 4 games live at the official website.

Here's Anand's post-game commentary (thanks to Jeremy Kane for reminding me that the interviewer is an ex-Chicagoan, IM Jan van de Mortel!), in which Vishy notes that the attacking idea was cribbed from Rubinstein's immortal win against Rotlevi:


 

Daniel King offers his praise:

5 comments:

Frederick Rhine said...

That game is amazing! If I study it for a year or two, I might understand it! Just incredible!!

Bill Brock said...

Is it proper to call this line a Meran, given that ...a7-a6 was never played?

Jeremy said...

Let's not ignore the Chicago connection. The post-game interview with the champ was conducted by former Chicagoan, Jan Van De Mortel.

Frederick Rhine said...

Compare Black's 15th and 16th moves in this game with Black's 16th and 17th moves in Nielsen-Hillarp Persson. http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1434778 In both of these brilliancies, Black on consecutive moves puts his bishop and knight INTO a pawn fork.

Bill Brock said...

"Is it proper to call this line a Meran, given that ...a7-a6 was never played?"

Answering my own question: no, it's a Semi-Slav.