Veselin Topalov wins Grand Slam Final

Position No. 6021: White to play. From the game Sergey Karjakin- Gata Kamsky, Moscow 2008.

Solution to Position No. 6020: White wins with 1 Rxe6! Nxe6 2 Bd5 Re8 3 c7. Neither 3 . . . Rxc7 4 Qh8+ Kf7 5 Qh7+ nor 3 . . . Rh7 4 Qxg6+ Rg7 5 Bxe6+ Rxe6 6 Qxe6+ Kh7 7 Qh6+ Kg8 8 g6 survives. Toughest is 3 . . . Kf7 4 Bxg7 Qg8 (not 4 . . . Qxg7 5 Bxe6+), but White wins anyway with 5 Bf6 Rc8 6 Bd8 Ke8 7 Qh4 (intending 8 Qc4) Rxd8 8 Bxe6! Qxe6 9 Qh8+.

Veselin Topalov took the first prize of 150,000 Euros (about $218,000) in the Grand Slam Final in Bilbao, Spain. The Bulgarian grandmaster won four games and lost only once in the double round robin. His 6 1/2 -3 1/2 score counted as 17 points under the experimental scoring system of three points for a win and one point for a draw.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Levon Aronian of Armenia were next with 13 points (5-5), followed by Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, 12 points (5-5); Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), 10 points (4 1/2 -5 1/2 ); and world champion Viswanathan Anand of India, 8 points (4-6).

The Bilbao organizers used the ban on draws by agreement and the strange scoring system in an attempt to make every game a fight.

It's doubtful that the changes had much effect on Topalov and Carlsen, who rarely aim for safe draws. Was Anand bothered? I suspect that his world championship match against Vladimir Kramnik, scheduled to begin Oct. 14, was on his mind.

Unofficially, Anand fell from first to fifth in the world rankings. Topalov, first throughout 2006, should be first again on the next official list, due Oct. 1.

Women's championship

The women's world championship began Aug. 29 amid criticism of the playing site in Nalchik, Russia, not far from the war in South Ossetia. Surprisingly, the tournament rose above political concerns and produced its own drama. The four highest-rated contenders reached the semifinals despite the chancy format (two-game matches plus speed chess tiebreakers). In one semifinal, glamorous Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia defeated Pia Cramling of Sweden, a contender since the 1980s. In the other, 14-year-old Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan edged Humpy Koneru of India, the second-highest-rated female ever, in a tiebreaker of five-minute games.

Kosteniuk took a 2-1 lead over Hou in their match for the world championship title. You can see all games from links at fide.com.

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