Today's topic is "A Rook vs Three Pawns". Now we are finishing with the chapter "Rook with pawns". In the endings three pawns it is enough compensation for the rook as a rule. The result depends on location of pieces, pawn's structure and how pawns has advanced. The further pawns are the more dangerous they are. For the successful fight against three pawns one needs full coordination of king with the rook, otherwise pawns may win.

Rook vs Tree Pawns

Anand recovered and beated Carlsen with Black. Topalov grabbed the sole lead by beating Ivanchuk with White. Aronian-Radjabov and Leko-Shirov ended in a draw. The Bulgarian is leading with 2.5 points out of 3, the world champion has half a point less. Together they scored 4 wins so far. No one else has a plus score after the first three rounds.

Games with coments round 3

Morelia-Linares is just two rounds ahead, but so much has happened already. Two decisive games today: Aronian defeated Anand with Black in a Marshall and Ivanchuk beat Leko in a rare line of the Ruy Lopez. Topalov and Radjabov seemed to be blundering a pawn one after another, and then drew their Berlin Wall, Shirov-Carlsen in a solid Paulsen drew their game.

The game of the day was Anand vs Aronian, in which the Armenian got a very strong attack after sacrificing a second pawn in the Marshall. It looked like Anand blundered terribly on move 30, but in reality his position was already hopeless

Tournament standing after round 2,

No	Name	Fed	Rating	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Pts
1	Alexei Shirov	ESP	2755	**	1/2	-	-	-	-	-	0	0.5
2	Magnus Carlsen	NOR	2733	1/2	**	-	-	-	-	1/2	-	1.0
3	Peter Leko	HUN	2753	-	-	**	-	-	1	0	-	1.0
4	Veselin Topalov	BUL	2780	-	-	-	**	1	1/2	-	-	1.5
5	Levon Aronian	ARM	2739	-	-	-	0	**	-	-	1	1.0
6	Teimour Radjabov	AZE	2735	-	-	0	1/2	-	**	-	-	0.5
7	Vassily Ivanchuk	UKR	2751	-	1/2	1	-	-	-	**	-	1.5
8	Viswanathan Anand	IND	2799	1	-	-	-	0	-	-	**	1.0

 Morelia.

Games with coments round 2

Morelia/Linares is an eight-player, double round-robin and is held from February 14 till March 8. Participants are Anand, Aronian, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Leko, Radjabov, Shirov and Topalov. The first part takes place 14-23 February in the Mexican city of Morelia, after which the players fly to Spain for the second part of the tournament: February 28 - March 8 in Linares.

Video tour to Morelia-Linares!

Report Round 1

Morelia-Linares has had a promising start. Anand defeated Shirov with Black in Najdor with a typical sacrifice of exchange on c3, Topalov beat Aronian in home preparation a Nimzo-Indian, Leko won  as well, against Radjabov who tried a Sveshnikov, and Carlsen-Ivanchuk was a quiet draw in Najdorf)

Games with coments round 1

We continue with the rook's endings. Today's theme is "Rook vs Two Pawns". Of course the rook again has very good chances to win. Some of the technical approaches used in this study are the same we have seen in the previous one. However, there are also many new posibilities.

I'll consider following cases:

A) Connected Pawns

B) Isolated Pawns

Rook vs Two Pawns

"Later, ... I began to succeed in decisive games. Perhaps because I realised a very simple truth:
not only was I worried, but also my opponent."

GM Mikhail Tal

Video "Game Tal vs Fischer"

Unlike the smooth, almost effortless style of a Capablanca, Tal purposely played moves that created the maximum complications for both sides. He once said, "One doesn't have to play well. One only needs to play better than his opponent". Dr. Lasker would have loved that quote, for he too believed the game of chess as a struggle between two minds, as opposed to each player blindly making "correct" moves.

The most famous Tal's games

How often did you meet in your practice Rook endings? I claim that more than half of all games pass through this part! So for improving your chess skills you'd study rook endings extremely carefully.

The rook is a powerful long-range piece and should generally be used actively. It is not adept in passive defence and the blockade of enemy passed pawns. For this reason the game may still be unclear even when one side has sacrifice his rook!

Rook ending consist in three topics:

1) Rook vs Pawns

2) Rook vs Rook

3) Double Rook endings.

Start from the first Rook vs Pawns.

1) Most of the time, material is not as important as positional considiration

2) The defender's aim is to construct an impregnable fortress of one of the following typed:

Type 1: The king stops the passed pawn, while the bishop protects the other pawns.

Type 2: The bishop stops the passed pawns while the king assists it and stops the atacking king breaking through.

3) If a fortress of the second type can be broken, then the attacker usually creates two passed pawns on different wings and his king helps one pawn to advance, eventually winning the bishop.

4) If the attacker sacrifices material himself to create passed pawns, his bishop must be able to halt the resulting enemy passed pawns on diagonal. The principle of one diagonal is important for the attacker and the defender as a methode to avoid falling into zugzwang or being diverted.

5) As defender, attack your opponent's pawns with your bishop to force them onto squares of the opposite colour to your bishop. It is then easier to create a safe blockade.

Opposite coloured bishops

These are two interesting games I've played recently.

The first game was in very agressive line, known as "poison pawn" in Naidorf variant against IM Alexikov, the second was positional game, which I've played today against Zalkin D in "Paulsen" line.

Many games ended in draws as always in these last rounds. One of them was Polgar-Aronian they smashed 27 moves of Marshall theory onto the board in no time. 27…Re5 was new compared to Nakamura-Aronian, Gibraltar 2005, and the ending was drawish.

Another important game was between Anand and Kramnik, was played as usual Petroff's defence. They followed Svidler-Kramnik, Mexico 2007, until Black brought a novelty with 23…hxg4. Vishy was winning… until he missed 51.Rd1!, which is winning according to the engines. Anand could shared the 1-3 places with Aronian and Carlsen! In the end of game followed draw agreement.

Leko finished his tournament with a victory against Mamedyarov, who disappointed this year. Out of the opening Black got some troubles and after he missed 22…Ne5, it was over already.

Michael Adams was a bit surprised today by Veselin Topalov’s choice of opening today. Most of the moves were known theory, including the temporary pawn sac by black, and the well-advised returning of it by white. In the post mortem, Adams said that maybe 22.f3 wasn’t necessary, but in any event black was doing well, and a draw was agreed one move later.

Finally a win for Boris Gelfand, at the expense of Pavel Eljanov. After the game Boris said he already played this opening “before my opponent was born” :-). Black’s hanging pawn formation makes it hard for him to find an active plan, and when he tried anyway, his weaknesses started to tell. Gelfand managed to provoke 23...f6, with a softening of the kingside, and soon won a pawn. Black’s 33...d4?  gave up a second pawn, hoping to get some counterplay, but the Israeli carefully defused it. After 37.f3, massive material losses were inevitable for black, and so he had to resign shortly thereafter.

Michael Adams was a bit surprised today by Veselin Topalov’s choice of opening today. Most of the moves were known theory, including the temporary pawn sac by black, and the well-advised returning of it by white. In the post mortem, Adams said that maybe 22.f3 wasn’t necessary, but in any event black was doing well, and a draw was agreed one move later.

In Vassily Ivanchuk - Loek van Wely, the Dutchman confused his move order (10...Nbd7?! instead of 10...dxc4) and so had to allow his opponent to weaken his kingside pawn structure. Later, after black had sacrificed a pawn, the Ukrainian should have tried 20.f3!  getting rid of the centralized knight and reactivating his passive bishop, instead of the game’s 20.Na5?. Once white had missed this, black managed to tactically hold his position, and after a few moves in the knight ending, a draw was registered.

Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen drew their games today, and are the joint winners of the 70th Corus Chess Tournament Grandmaster Group A!

Final tabale:

Games round 13

Press conference Aronian and Carlsen

Interview winer Group "B"  Movsesian

Interview winer Group "C" Caruana

Magnus Carlsen played a magnificent game against Vladimir Kramnik, beating the former World Champion with the black pieces. Levon Aronian could not overcome Ivanchuk's defence and only drew, so that now, before the final round, Aronian and Carlsen are in the lead. Judit Polgar outplayed Michael Adams on the black side of a Petroff. And sensationally Veselin Topalov went down against Pavel Eljanov in a Modern Benoni.

In last round Carlsen has white against Radjabov, who would desperately like to move into the top, but will probably be fairly cautious against the obviously in-form Norwegian. Aronian is Black against Judit Polgar, who is probably in an optimistic mood and will be seeking to improve her position on the final table. Naturally the big match is Anand vs Kramnik, where anything might happen. Anand might try to set the tone for the September World Championship match with a fine victory; Kramnik might strike out for once with the black pieces to climb to a less embarrassing position on the table.

Video analysis Kramnik vs Carlsen (Part 1)

Video analysis Kramnik vs Carlsen (Part 2)

Kramnik vs Carlsen (Part 3)

Games round 12

Round 11 was a very hot! Almost all games were effective. The curent World champion has outplayed the junior Magnus in a very dangerouse position for him. The young choose unexpect e4 for this game. Anand offered line of sicilian, where he was feeling like a fish in a water.

The exciting game was Aronioan vs Van Wely. Levon has chosen a line with white which he was played with black against Gelfand in round 2 and was successful. This time he had a white colour and has got a full point. Aronian has took over Carlsen relay-race of leader with 7 points!

Another runner up Radjabov played with black against Gelfand. The favour Old Indian defence of Radjabov gave him progress. Now he and Anand are sharing 2-3 places with 6.5pts.

The first win for outsider Eljanov, who's defeated Polgar in Ray Lopez variant. Another important game was Ivanchuk vs Adams. Both players played sharp but carefully and followed draw.

In game Topalov vs Mamedyarov there was unexpected Old Indian defence (Radjabov's influence). The game finished with draw agreement in dynamic position!?

One more time Petroff's defence was met in game Leko vs Kramnik. the game finished with a perpetual check. 

Video analysis Carlsen vs Anand (Part1)

Video analysis Carlsen vs Anand (Part2)

Interview Aronian

Games round 11