Living up to his fighting qualities, Grandmaster Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan crashed through the defences of Englishman Michael Adams in the second game of the finals of the World Chess championship 2004 in Tripoli in Libya.
Kasimdzhanov thus struck another major surprise of the championship and now leads the six-game match 1.5-0.5.
It may be recalled here that coming to the finals, the Uzbek had shown the exit door to three of the top four seeds, GM Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, GM Alexander Grishchuk of Russia and GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine.
Unlike the first game that was drawn without a real contest, the second game provided ample fireworks to keep the worldwide viewers interested till the last moment.
Kasimdzhanov had his eyes trained for drawing the first blood if the twinkle in his eyes around 35th move gave any indication. Even as Adams made up for some of the slight lapses on his part and precisely defended for some time, the end came quite abruptly with Kasimdzhanov's rooks doing the damage.
It was another excellent result for the Uzbek, after drawing easily with black in the opening game, and now four draws in the remaining games will fetch something that he might have been very secretly hoping for - the World Champion's tag.
It was a Petroff defence where nothing worked well for Adams who played black. Going for one of the popular variation, Adams was caught in a knight sortie in the middle game that ensured Kasimdzhanov a lasting advantage and he nurtured it for a long time.
Even the trading of pawns at regular intervals did not help the English and Kasimdzhanov made steady progress to maintain the pressure.
However as the time pressure approached, Kasimdzhanov missed a simple tactical stroke and much to his relief Adams also failed to spot it on move 40 and was gradually outplayed in the ensuing rook and pawns endgame after a further little drama, wherein Kasimdzhanov once more missed a more promising continuation. The game lasted 55 moves.
In the next game, Adams has white pieces and will certainly try to do better than the first game in the match that lasted only till the 18th move.
The Championship that took off on a knockout basis started with 124 players and has the winner's purse of US$ 1,00,000 in a total prize pool of a little over 1.5 million US Dollars.
Moves:
Game 2:
R Kasimdzhanov vs M Adams:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Be7 8. c4 Nb4 9. Be2 O-O 10. Nc3 Be6 11. Ne5 f6 12. Nf3 Kh8 13. a3 Nxc3 14. bxc3 Nc6 15. Nd2 Na5 16. cxd5 Bxd5 17. c4 Bf7 18. Bb2 f5 19. Bc3 c5 20. d5 Bf6 21. Qc2 b6 22. Bd3 Bxc3 23. Qxc3 Nb7 24. Nf3 Nd6 25. Ne5 f4 26. Rfe1 Bg8 27. Nc6 Qg5 28. Qe5 Qxe5 29. Nxe5 Rfe8 30. a4 g6 31. g3 fxg3 32. hxg3 Kg7 33. f4 Re7 34. a5 b5 35. cxb5 Bxd5 36. Bf1 Nf5 37. Ra3 Nd4 38. Rd1 Rd8 39. Rc3 Be6 40. Kf2 Rc8 41. Rb1 g5 42. b6 axb6 43. axb6 gxf4 44. gxf4 Bd5 45. Bd3 Rf8 46. Ke3 Nc6 47. Rxc5 Nxe5 48. fxe5 Bb7 49. Be4 Rff7 50. Bxb7 Rxb7 51. Ke4 Rfd7 52. Rc6 Kf8 53. e6 Rd2 54. Rf1+ Ke8 55. Rc8+ black resigned
More from rediff