Topalov Catches Vishy On Day 3 Of Champions Showdown
After three days, the two "veterans," Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov are currently leading the 2016 Champions Showdown with 3.5/6 as the classical portion of the event came to a close. Hikaru Nakamura is close behind with 3.0/6 while Fabiano Caruana struggles with just 2.0/6. Tomorrow the players will play six rapid games (double round-robin) followed by 12 blitz games on Monday.
Photos courtesy of the Saint Louis Chess Club.
Round 5
Caruana's woes continued this morning as he was unable to hold his defense against Nakamura in a Queen's Gambit Declined. In the post-game interview, he confessed to trying to make the game more interesting, but his pawn sacrifice fell short of creating enough counterplay and Nakamura was able to win a very clean technical game.
Meanwhile Anand and Topalov were involved in a turf war on all sides of the board. They saw a few fireworks before eventually liquidating into a drawish middlegame. Their draw allowed Nakamura to catch up to Anand in the lead after five rounds.
Round 6
Special guest commentator, Garry Kasparov showed up to provide thoughts on the event, and added his insights on Carlsen vs. Karjakin.
Today we will have special guest @Kasparov63 on our #ChampionsShowdown broadcast! Stay tuned at https://t.co/o8w71ZPMbV at 1 PM CT. pic.twitter.com/oLjgYtW2xA
— SaintLouis ChessClub (@CCSCSL) November 12, 2016
In round six, Topalov played one of the best games of the event thus far, launching a potent attack against Nakamura and displaying the full power of the opposite-color bishops in the middlegame:
With all of the excitement going on in this game, the commentators did not spend as much attention on the game between Caruana and Anand, which featured a classic IQP (isolated queen pawn). Without too much intrigue, their game remained balanced and was eventually drawn:
Tomorrow the players will play the rapid portion of the event, followed by the blitz on Monday. You can follow the games from the Champions Showdown starting at 1 p.m. CST each day.
