M-Tel Masters 2006 - Round 4 Report

Comeback artist Kamsky pulls of another stunner, Anand returns to winning ways & Topalov has another bad day.
GM Gata Kamsky continued his giant killing ways in the 4 th round of the M-tel Masters 2006 chess championship, being held at Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
Playing the white side of the Sicilian:Scheveningen, Modern variation he completely outplayed GM Peter Svidler in a 24 move sharp stunner of a game. The players kept exchanging their pieces at regular intervals, till Kamsky came up with a stunner on move 21. His rook for Knight and pawn sacrifice completely opened up the Black king side, which with a strong queen-bishop placement forced Svidler to resign 3 moves later in a completely hopeless position.

In the other games:

GM Vishwanthan Anand of India returned back to winning ways with a facile victory over GM Ponomariov. Playing the white side of the Caro-Kann, Anand quickly equalised in the opening and slowly built up the pressure on the queen side. The russian grandmaster tried to thwart Anand's superior positional play with exchange of queens on move 17, but the pawns kept rolling and Ponomariov had to resign on move 56.

The moves - 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. Nf3 Nd7 7. h4 h6 8.
h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 e6 11. Bf4 Ngf6 12. O-O-O Be7 13. Ne4 Nxe4 14.
Qxe4 Nf6 15. Qd3 Qd5 16. c4 Qe4 17. Qxe4 Nxe4 18. Be3 O-O 19. Ne5 Bd6 20.
f3 Ng3 21. Rh3 Nf5 22. Bf2 Rad8 23. g4 Ne7 24. Nd3 b5 25. b3 Bc7 26. Rhh1
Bb6 27. Nc5 Rfe8 28. Kc2 bxc4 29. bxc4 Bxc5 30. dxc5 e5 31. Rd6 Rb8 32.
Rhd1 Rb7 33. Rd8 Rxd8 34. Rxd8+ Kh7 35. Rf8 f6 36. Be1 Rd7 37. Bc3 Ng8 38.
a4 g6 39. a5 gxh5 40. gxh5 Kg7 41. Rb8 Ne7 42. a6 Kf7 43. Ba5 Nf5 44. Bb6
Ne3+ 45. Kc3 Ke6 46. Rc8 Kf5 47. Rxc6 Nd1+ 48. Kb4 Rd2 49. Bxa7 Rb2+ 50.
Ka3 Rb1 51. Rb6 Ra1+ 52. Kb3 e4 53. fxe4+ Kxe4 54. c6 Kd3 55. c7 Rb1+ 56.
Ka3 Black resigns [1-0].

This is Anand's third win in four games. He now lies in sole 2nd position,0.5 points behind American GM Gata Kamsky.

GM Topalov, the local favourite and present World Champion was again held to a draw, this time by the tournament last place holder, French GM Etione Bacrot. Playing the Romanishin variation of the Nimzo-Indian opening, Bacrot held on till the 29thmove when both players called it a day after they were left with opposite colored bishops and an equal number of pawns.
Topalov is having a particularly bad tournament and now liesin 4th place having secured just 1.5 points after 4 rounds.

The tournament Standings after Round 4:

Rank	Name	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	Pts
1	Kamsky Gata	USA	* *	1	1		½	1	3,5
2	Anand Viswanathan	IND	0	* *		1	1	1	3,0
3	Svidler Peter	RUS	0		* *	½	1	½	2,0
4	Topalov Veselin	BUL		0	½	* *	½	½	1,5
5	Ponomariov Ruslan	UKR	½	0	0	½	* *		1,0
6	Bacrot Etienne	FRA	0	0	½	½		* *	1,0

Tags: Anand, Svidler, Topalov, Kamsky, M-tel, sofia, Bulgaria

Category: Chess , M-Tel Masters