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Draws dominate in World chess championship 2000

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December 7, 2000 

NEW DELHI-- (AP) - Grandmaster Alexei Dreev of Russia outplayed Grandmaster Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria to go one up in the fourth round of the World Chess Championships 2000 on Wednesday.

The mens section was marred by draws. Estonian Grandmaster Jan Ehlvest signed the peace treaty in just 14 moves against Grandmaster Alexander Grishchuk of Russia.

Ehlvest played the English opening with white pieces and Grishchuk did not face any problems in equalizing.

Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand gave a masterly display of his defensive technique to get an easy draw against Grandmaster Bartlomiej Macieja of Poland.

The Polish, who has an excellent reputation in the tiebreaker games, opened with the King pawn. Anand's choice was Sicilian Taimanov.

After the opening, Anand decided to keep his king in the center as Macieja had successfully deployed his pieces on the kingside. By bringing most of his pieces near to the king, Anand ensured himself a good position and confided in the post-match conference that he might have been slightly better.

Macieja sensed that opening up the position might boomerang and proposed the draw after his 26th move.

Dreev was up against the Chelyabinsk variation of the Slav defense against Topalov. Having the advantage of white pieces, referred to as the favorable color, Dreev embarked on a fine plan in the middlegame that netted him a space advantage on the king side. On the 13th move, Topalov erred and lost a king side pawn for effectively no counter-play.

In a copybook fashion, Dreev cleared the way for his pieces to move in and registered a smooth victory.

Grandmaster Evgeny Bareev of Russia drew with Grandmaster Boris Gulko of the United States in 19 moves of a Nimzo Indian defense. Bareev played the Capablanca variation, named after a former world champion, and lived dangerously for some time, according to experts.

Gulko, however, decided against going for the kill as it involved a considerable amount of risk.

Grandmaster Alexei Shirov of Spain too did not get the desirable attacking position against Grandmaster Boris Gelfand of Israel. Playing the English attack, Shirov settled for a draw after 21 moves.

In the Womens section, defending Champion Grandmaster Xie Jun of China drew the first blood against Women Grandmaster Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine. Natalia lost a complicated battle arising out of a French Winawer.

Woman Grandmaster Ekaterina Kovalevskaya of Russia defeated Peng Zhaoqin of the Netherlands, while International Master Alisa Maric of Yugoslavia drew with International Master Almira Scripchenko- Lautier of Moldova.