[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: This Week's ChessBase Show: Bologan-Anand

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Wed Jan 9 02:32:47 EST 2008


Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
This Week's ChessBase Show: Bologan-Anand
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1199863960.shtml


   Most of us are very familiar with the usual suspects in today's
   super-tournaments; players like Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Leko,
   Svidler, Morozevich, Ivanchuk and so on are household names - at least
   when the household includes the sorts of people who read this blog!
   But there are a host of other great players, players whose ratings
   reside just a notch or two below that of the Linares crowd. Given half
   a chance, they are capable of the highest results as well.
   For instance, there was Khalifman's victory in the 1999 FIDE world
   championship and Kasimdzhanov's triumph in the 2004 edition of the
   same competition. Examples can be multiplied, but even the foregoing
   is enough to confirm something Moldovan grandmaster [1]Viorel Bologan
   has written [2]in his recent best games collection: "There are many
   more than ten people who know how to play chess"!
   As you may already suspect from the title of the post, Bologan
   considers himself one of the more-than-ten, and he can make an
   excellent case for the claim. There have been many notable successes
   in his career, but the greatest achievements to date came in 2003. At
   the start of the year he won the incredibly strong Aeroflot Open,
   which qualified him to play in the Dortmund super-tournament later
   that year. Although his rivals included Anand, Kramnik, Leko and
   Radjabov, he won the 10-round event by a full point!
   Appropriately, then, we'll have a look at his win over Anand from this
   event. The opening was a Classical Caro-Kann, but this didn't produce
   a dull game, but only one where the hand-to-hand fighting took a
   little while to develop. But it wasn't that long, and soon interesting
   things were happening all over the board. Anand is not just a great,
   great player, he's probably the best defender in the chess world. Yet
   in our game, Bologan somehow managed to keep him under complete
   control, winning in impressive fashion.
   The fun is in the details, of course, and this is a game that repays
   careful study. I hope, therefore, that you'll join me tonight -
   Thursday night - at 9 p.m. ET (that's Friday morning at 3 a.m. CET) as
   we investigate this fine game from the recent past. The shows are
   free, as always, and if you're not sure how to watch the directions
   are [3]here. See you there!

References

   1. http://www.bologan.md/index_en.html
   2. http://www.amazon.com/Victor-Bologan-Selected-Games-1985-2004/dp/1888690372
   3. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1114234449.shtml



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