Humpy raced to victory in 47 moves

Wijk Aan Zee: GM Koneru Humpy caused a sort of upset with a huge win over Grandmaster Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria, the training partner of Veselin Topalov, in the group B second round of the Corus International Chess tournament here.

Humpy, who began as 13th seed among the 14 players, was at her best with white in tackling the positional intricacies that ensued from a queen pawn game and raced to victory after 47 moves.

Her more fancied compatriot, world No. 3 Viswanathan Anand was held to a draw by World Cup champion Levon Aronian of Armenia in the widely followed group A.

World champion Veselin Topalov also met the fate of his training partner as he suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Britain’s Michael Adams.

The A group was also more dramatic with former world championship finalist Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine emerging the sole leader with his second round win over local favourite Ivan Sokolov.

Anand, now second with half a point adrift of the leader, was held to a draw in the longest game of this section but the day belonged to Adams, who scored a finely-crafted victory over Topalov.

In group A, Ivanchuk currently rules the roost with a perfect score while Anand, Etienne Bacrot of France and Adams are next in line on 1.5 points each. After the defeat, Topalov was relegated to the joint fifth spot in this category-19 round-robin event played among 14 players.

Anand, in fact, played a nice game right till the end but Aronian’s defense got everything right. The Armenian wanted to make amends for his opening day debacle against Ivanchuk and succeeded when Anand could make little headway despite having an extra pawn in the end game.

It all started with the anti-marshall where Anand got a slight edge out of the opening and forcibly won a pawn with consistent pressure tactics.

However, after winning the pawn the position offered a drawing chance to Aronian who remained glued to his chair while performing the tough defensive task. The peace was signed after 66 moves.

Topalov got a taste of his own medicine when Adams came down heavily on him with crushing tactics in a Sicilian Najdorf game where the former played black.

Playing to his style, Adams opted for the oft-repeated and heavily analysed Sicilian Scheveningen. Things took a steep turn in the middle game when Adams sacrificed apiece to initiate an attack against the king.

Many experts thought it to be a speculative sacrifice but obviously Adams had foreseen more than anyone else by this time, a la Topalov.

Going for the kill amidst ensuing complexities, Adams devastated Topalov with a rook sacrifice and the Bulgarian was soon forced to part with his queen only to reach a lost endgame.

For Adams, the sweetest win in recent times was achieved in 42 moves. (Pti)