Archive for February 21st, 2010

“Two exciting games – and one Petroff,” writes our commentator GM Anish Giri. Gelfand used the latter in a colorless draw against Vallejo. The other two games were more entartaining. Topalov had a clear win against Aronian but missed the killer move; and Grischuk profited from a non-obvious error in Gashimov’s Benoni to narrow the gap to the leading Topalov. Big illustrated report with commentary.

Once again: the result sounds boring, the games on the other hand were electrifying. Not, we hasten to add, due to their flawless perfection – on the contrary, they demonstrate that these are humans playing at the boards. Humans with nerves and frailties. The result left Veselin Topalov still in the lead by a point and a half, and the tail ender Vallejo the tragic hero of the event.