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Chess
Anand to meet Ivanchuk in semifinals
By Arvind Aaron
MOSCOW, DEC. 8. ``Nothing ever changes in this life, Vishy always beats me,'' said Alexei Shirov of Spain after making a draw and bowing out of the FIDE World chess championship quarterfinals at the State Kremlin Palace here on Friday.
World champion Viswanathan Anand, who is defending his title in the $ 3-million championship, had an easy passage into the semifinals, knocking out last year's finalist, Shirov, 1.5- 0.5. For Shirov, the fifth-round jinx continued, bowing out in this round for the third time in four appearances.
In the semifinals, Anand will clash with Vassily Ivanchuk while Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine faces Peter Svidler of Russia.
Ponomariov, the player of the year from Ukraine advanced with a sweeping 2-0 victory over Evgeny Bareev of Russia in the rapid play-off.
After two sets of rapid tie-break games could not break their tie, Boris Gelfand and Peter Svidler went for the second set of play-off games where the latter won the first game with the white pieces and drew the second game with some heavenly luck to win 1-1 in classical chess, 1-1 in rapid chess and 1.5- 0.5 in semi-rapid chess.
Ivanchuk overcame Joel Lautier 1-1 in classical chess, 1-1 in rapid chess and 1.5-0.5 in the second set of tie-break games to earn a semifinal berth.
The lone decisive result came in the second set of tie-break games when Ivanchuk won with the white pieces in 52 moves after reaching a favourable rook ending.
Anand played the French defence with black, an opening he used in the Teheran match against Shirov. By the third move he chose the Rubinstein variation which gives white greater central control. On the 10th turn, Anand played a new move developing his bishop.
Black managed to exchange pieces and white's advantage was minimal.
Anand exchanged queens on the 20th move and allowed white to have a pawn majority on the queenside. White's tiny advantage looked strategic from the angle of the pawn formation but hard to find a good practical continuation.
It was two rooks, knight and five pawns versus an identical combine on the other side. Shirov did not take any chances and decided to repeat the position and bow out.
About eliminating Shirov in most World championship matches, Anand said, ``I have a good record against him. But there is no point thinking about it. He has been a top five player. When you play a match against him anything can happen.''
Boris Gelfand has a one-game lead in head-to-head encounters from ten games against Peter Svidler. On Friday, with the black pieces, Gelfand played the French defence and later opted for the Rubinstein variation like Anand on the adjacent board.
This game ended in a 20-move draw. Gelfand proposed the draw with four rooks and four pieces still uncaptured, but in a dead drawn position. Svidler accepted the offer to enter the play-off.
Ivanchuk has a huge personal plus score in his head-to-head games against Lautier. Perhaps this made him throw a knight in the middle of the board.
Lautier accepted the knight in the Queen's Indian defence game and looked lost with an under developed queenside. But Ivanchuk panicked and took a draw by repetition on move 22 to opt for the tie-breaks.
Having drawn the opener against Ponomariov, a lot depended on whether Bareev would be able to get some mileage from playing white.
But after the opening phase, Ponomariov had levelled the position by accepting the Queen's Gambit. After 29 moves, Bareev proposed a draw sensing that an ending of opposite colour bishops was imminent and Ponomariov accepted it.
The four players who lost this round stood to get $70,000 while the semifinalists are assured of $ 106,000.
It's Kosteniuk vs Zhu Chen
Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk will play Zhu Chen of China for the World women's chess title.
Kosteniuk, who bounced back to level the classical chess score at 1-1 earlier in the day, won the tie-break 2-0 against World Cup champion Xu Yuhua of China.
Zhu Chen of China eliminated Maya Chiburdanidze of Georgia 1.5-0.5 as won with white after drawing with black.
lThe results (round five, game two, with nett scores): Alexei Shirov (Esp) lost to Viswanathan Anand 0.5- 1.5; Peter Svidler (Rus) beat Boris Gelfand (Isr) 1-1, 1-1, 1.5- 0.5; Evgeny Bareev (Rus) lost to Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) 1-1, 0- 2; Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) beat Joel Lautier (Fra) 1-1, 1-1, 1.5- 0.5.
Women (round five, game two, nett scores): Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus) bt Xu Yuhua (Chn), 1-1; Zhu Chen (Chn) drew with Maya Chiburdanidze (Geo), 1-1.
Tie-break scores: Kosteniuk bt Xu Yuhua 2-0; Zhu Chen bt Chiburdanidze 1.5-0.5.
The moves:
GM Alexei Shirov-GM Viswanathan Anand, round five, game two, French Defence, C10: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Bd3 c5 7.0-0 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Nxe4 9.Bxe4 Nf6 10.Bf3 Be7 11.Nb5 0-0 12.Bf4 Bd7 13.c4 Bc6 14.Qe2 Bxf3 15.Qxf3 Qb6 16.Rad1 a6 17.Bc7 Qc5 18.Bd6 Bxd6 19.Nxd6 b5 20.Qe3 Qxe3 21.fxe3 bxc4 22.Nxc4 h6 23.Rd4 Rfb8 24.Rfd1 a5 25.Kf2 Kh7 26.R1d2 a4 27.Kf3 Ra7 28.e4 Rb4 29.Nd6 Rb8 30.Nc4 Rb4 31.Nd6 Rb8 32.Rc4 Draw.
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