Friday, February 20, 2009

Kamsky - Topalov

Paul Hoffman's "Chess It Out!" at NPR offered an interesting commentary on Gata Kamsky's "Brain Freeze" in the second game of his match with Veselin Topolov for the right to challenge Anand:
Wednesday's game was morbidly dramatic, in the way NASCAR racing is when cars collide. Kamsky got strangely caught up in the boundlessness of chess and self-destructed. He suffered brain freeze and spent much too much time thinking in simple positions. The rules required him to make his first 40 moves in two hours, but he managed to play only 32 and forfeited — a very rare result in world-class chess.
Kamsky briefly pulled even at the halfway point, but Topalov soon took a commanding lead in the match and won it all with Game 7. Analysis of the seven games can be found online from various commentators:

Game 7
Topalov - Kamsky, 1-0 (French Defense, Tarrasch Variation C07)
Game 6
Kamsky - Topalov, 1/2-1/2 (Caro-Kann, Short Variation B12)
Game 5
Topalov - Kamsky, 1-0 (French Defense, Tarrasch C07)

Game 4
Kamsky - Topalov 1-0 (Ruy Lopez, Closed - C88)
Game 3
Topalov - Kamsky 1/2-1/2 (Gruenfeld - D81)
Game 2
Kamsky - Topalov 0-1 (Ruy Lopez, Berlin Variation - C65)
Game 1
Topalov - Kamsky 1/2-1/2 (Gruenfeld - D86-88)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The 32 move loss could have equally been resignation. He had lost the handle and Topalov was winning huge material with ....f5. Not sure what Hoffmann is on about with "brain freeze". White missed black's ....Rc7 resource and it was all then downhill. The story did not revolve in that game around some mysterious time forfeiture.