Anand beat Leko to move into sole lead

Morelia 5th round report and replayable games

Round 5 results:

Peter Leko - Vishy Anand 0-1
Veselin Topalov - Magnus Carlsen 0-1
Levon Aronian - Alexei Shirov draw
Teimour Radjabov - Vassily Ivanchuk draw

Round 5 standings:

1. Vishy Anand 3.5
2. Levon Aronian 3.0
3-5. Alexei Shirov, Veselin Topalov and Magnus Carlsen 2.5
6-8. Teimour Radjabov, Peter Leko and Vassily Ivanchuk 1.5

Levon Aronian allowed Alexei Shirov to enter his favorite English Opening (2...Bb4), but Shirov took long thought in the opening, probably wondering about opponent's preparation. He used the sideline that wasn't played over the last ten years and introduced novelty with 8...f5. Aronian missed the opportunity to challenge black's conception with 10. g4! and Shirov recaptured sacrificed pawn, easily equalizing in the process. Draw was agreed as early as on 18th move.

Vishy Anand is simply brilliant with black pieces, having achieved third consecutive win with this color. It started naively, Peter Leko opted for simplifying line in the English attack of Naidorf Sicilian. In the resulting endgame R+B vs R+N, the only imbalance was pawn majority at hands of each player. Leko tried to force advance of his queenside pawns, but Anand skillfully maneuvered with king, knight and rook to push his own pawn and catch white king in the spider's net. Note that white's promotion with 36. b6? Rxa6 37. b7 Rxc6 38. b8Q Rxc3+ is losing because black earns too much of the material.

The game between Teimour Radjabov and Vassily Ivanchuk took a course of Classical French defence, the same opening in which Radjabov beat Kasparov once, only that time he was with black pieces. Radjabov tried to complicate matters, refusing move repetition once, but Ivanchuk was up to task and with active play finally forced repetition some 15 moves later.

It is simply incredible to see Veselin Topalov being surprised with Magnus Carlsen's opening choice. Magnus already played Alekhine defence, for example against GM Petr Haba at the European Club Cup and in numerous games during the World Blitz Championship. All these games are available in databases. It was a good joke to see GM Hikaru Nakamura kibitzing that "Magnus is trying to copy him". Anyway, Topalov run into early trouble after not being able to bear with tactical consequences of the daring 12...c5! Carlsen kept the earned pawn thanks to back-rank motifs and, as GM Vladimir Dimitrov commented, played simple and strong moves to claim the full point. Both of them are now having 50% score.

Goran Urosevic

Round 6 pairings:

Veselin Topalov - Vishy Anand
Levon Aronian - Peter Leko
Teimour Radjabov - Magnus Carlsen
Vassily Ivanchuk - Alexei Shirov

Please note that Thursday is rest day. Join us on Friday at 16:30 EST / 22:30 CET for the live commentary on the 5th round of Morelia-Linares. See you there!