Past Events - 2006

Undisputed World Champion Vladimir Kramnik
(PGN Games)

The Unified World Chess Championship match between the two Super GMs, Russia's Vladimir Kramnik and Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov, took place in Elista, Kalmykia, Russia from 23rd September to 13th October 2006. Vladimir Kramnik has won the match and become World's Undisputed Chess Champion. After scheduled 12 games at normal time rates finished at 6-6 (including the disputed default to Topalov in game 5) it all came down to a rapid playoffs with the potential for blitz and a final Armageddon game. In the rapid playoffs Kramnik emerged a 2.5-1.5 winner and earned the World Championship title.

Kramnik vs. Deep Fritz, 2006
(PGN Games)

Deep Fritz has won the chess duel Man vs Machine, Vladimir Kramnik vs Deep Fritz match staged from November 25 till December 5th in the Federal Art Hall, Bonn, Germany. Deep Fritz won the second and last game of this six games match and the rest of the games were drawn. This match was sponsored by RAG-AG.
T This is the 2nd match between the two. The first match, held in 2002, was won by Kramnik. So, this second match is considered as some sort of revenge match. Kramnik will receive 500,000 Euros for playing and another 1 million us dollars if he wins the match. Deep Fritz version 10 will run on a server computer 5160 containing two Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs. It has the power of analyzing 8 million positions/sec. Kramnik received a copy of the program in mid-October for testing, but the final version will include an updated opening book. The endgame tablebases used by the program are restricted to 5 pieces, and only limited updates to the program's opening book are allowed during the match.

Dortmund, 2006
(PGN Games)

Vladimir Kramnik has won the Dortmunder Sparkassen Chess Meeting (Cat. 19 - Avg. Rating 2720) that took place in Dortmund, Germany from 29th July to 6th August 2006. Kramnik caught Peter Svidler in the final round, both finished on 4.5/7 with Kramnik taking first on Sonneborn-Berger tie-break. Kramnik defeated Leko in the final round, his second win in a row. World No. 3 Levon Aronian had a terrible event finishing with 2/7 after losing to Boris Gelfand in the final round.

Asian Games Chess, 2006
(PGN Games)

In the Asian Games Chess held in Doha, Qatar, India won Gold, China got Silver, Iran Bronze. In 9th and final round of the tournament, India drew with Kazakhstan to tally 22.5 points for the gold, a full 5 points ahead of China who beat Bangladesh 2:1 for 17.5 points and the silver medal. Iran shocked Qatar 3:0 to jump to third place with 16.5 points and grab the bronze medal. It was a heartbreaking loss for the host who were running third going into the last round.
Bangladesh team earned 14.5 points which placed them in the 7th place.

Mtel Masters , 2006
(PGN Games)

World Champion Veselin Topalov has won the Mtel Masters tournament held from 10-21st May 2006, in his home territiory, Sofia, Bulgaria. The category 20 event (average rating 2744) featured six of the world's top-20 players. Players including: Veselin Topalov BUL 2804, Viswanathan Anand IND 2803, Peter Svidler RUS 2743, Ruslan Ponomariov UKR 2738, Etienne Bacrot FRA 2708 and Gata Kamsky USA 2671. In this double-round tournament, by taking 2nd place ahead of Anand, Gata Kamsky shows that he has not finished yet. Except the two loses against Topalov, Kamsky's performance in this tournament is really amazing. In fact, he beats all other players in points.

Final Standings

1. Topalov, Veselin        g BUL 2804 6.5
2. Kamsky, Gata            g USA 2671 6.0
3. Anand, Viswanathan      g IND 2803 5.5
4. Svidler, Peter          g RUS 2743 5.0
5. Bacrot, Etienne         g FRA 2708 3.5
6. Ponomariov, Ruslan      g UKR 2738 3.5

Women World Chess Championship 2006
(PGN Games)

The Chinese Xu Yuhua is the Women’s World Chess Champion. In the final fight for the Champion’s Crown she managed to win against Alisa Galliamova of Russia (2.5-0.5). It was enough to win two games and end one in a draw to become the Champion. In the final game the Russian had all the chances to draw. She managed to pass the opening with one pawn up and had good perspectives of winning. But being probably tired she failed to display her best abilities. Galliamova lost the sense of the game and as a consequence the initiative. The Chinese brilliantly took the benefit from this possibility and at move 59 defeated Galliamova stopped the clock. At this very moment the Chief Arbiter Andrzei Fillipowicz claimed Xu Yuhua to be the Champion.

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Morelia/Linares, 2006
(PGN Games)

Levon Aronian is the winner of the traditional Linares super tournament which this year was divided into 2 parts: the first half of the tournament took place in Morelia (Mexico) February 18th-26th 2006, the second half was held in Linares (Spain) 3rd-11th March 2006. The prize fund was 380.000 Euros. Linares has been synonymous with that ultra-elite ethos for over a decade – a double round-robin (since 1998) with only the world's top six/seven players of the world plus a Spaniard. This year’s Linares certainly misses the razor-sharp games of Kasparov, Anand and Kramnik.

Speaking of the stories of the event, Topalov recovered a lot from the earlier collapse in the tournament and Peter Leko’s back to form has'nt lasted long. In the Morelia half, the highest-rated player in the world has shown flashes of good play but has been horribly inconsistent. But in Linares he earned 5.5 points out of 7.

Peter Leko was mediocre or worse in Dortmund, San Luis and Wijk aan Zee. But in Morelia, Leko didn’t loss a single game. In the Linares half, however, Leko's back in form appeared to be short lived. He failed to win a single game and the last two round defeat cost him the trophy of the tournament. 1st place holder Levon Aronian has shown consistency of performance in Linares too and this earned him the trophy of the tournament.

Final Standings

 1. Aronion, Levon       g ARM 2752 8.5 
2. Topalov, Veselin     g BUL 2801 8.0
3. Radjabov,Teimour     g AZE 2700 8.0
4. Peter, Leko          g HUN 2740 7.5
5. Svidler, Peter       g RUS 2765 6.5
6. Ivanchuk, Vasilly    g UKR 2729 6.5
7. Bacrot, Etienne      g FRA 2717 6.0
8. Vallejo, Francisco   g ESP 2650 5.0

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Corus Chess, 2006
(PGN Games)

In an amazing photo finish, Indian GM Viswanathan Anand managed to win in the last round, catch up with Topalov, share first place and take the trophy on tie breaks. Taking white pices against Israeli GM Boris Gelfand, Anand punished a serious opening inaccuracy by his opponent and eventually goes on to winning the game on move 66.

Topalov, on the other hand, failed to earn more than a draw from his last round game against GM Peter Leko of Hungary. Leko chose a very tame set-up against Topalov’s Najdorf. In the early middle game, Black already looked slightly better, eventually winning a pawn. White did well to force an endgame of major pieces with Bishops of opposite color, where Black’s extra passed pawn could not advance. Topalov tried to initiate the progress of the passed pawn, but then Peter activated his Rook and Bishop and Black had nothing better than to allow a repetition of moves.

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ONGC Open, 2006
(PGN Games)

‘ONGC Cup International Grand Masters Open Chess Tournament’ was held at K.V.B.R. Indoor Stadium, Yousufguda, Hyderabad, India from 25th February to 5th March 2006. After the 10th and final round of the tournament, six players finished 1st with 8 points each. Indian Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly won the trophy as his tiebreak result turned out to be the best.
Sole leader International Master J Deepan Chakravarthy emerged runner’s up after a 6-way tie at the top was resolved. In the final round Chakravarthy quickly drew his game with Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay. D P Singh of India defeated Grandmaster Alexander Fominyh of Russia in his last round and moved to 8 points. Singh finished sixth overall.
Grandmaster Ziaur Rahman recovered from his earliar defeat in round 3rd and 4th with six straight win. He scored a lucky victory over compatriot Abdullah Al Rakib and joined the 8-pointers group. Zia lost an exchange early against Rakib but recovered in quick time to generate attacking chances for himself. A fumble after another spelt disaster for Rakib who failed to withstand the pressure.
All six players tying for the first spot will go home richer by a little over one lakh rupees each in the Rs. 8.25 Lakhs prize money tournament.

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4th Parsvnath International Open, 2006
(PGN Games)

In the 4th Parsvnath International Open 2006, New Delhi, India, Grandmaster Alexei Fedorov of Belarus expectedly won the tournament with a quick draw against GM Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan. Fedorov won the winner's purse of Rs. 175000/- with a 9/10 score. The Belarussian won as many as 8 games and drew the remaining two for a fine performance.

In a four-way tie for the second spot, GM Kotsur had the best tiebreak and finished second, GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh finished third, Saptarshi Roy fourth and M.R.Venkatesh stood fifth on 8 points each.

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