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Kamasky too good for Khalifman

Paul Eriksen in Las Vegas

Lack of match practice hardly seemed to bother Gata Kamsky as he mauled Alexander Khalifman, first-round conqueror of Dibyendu Barua, in the first game of the second round of the FIDE World chess Championships here in Las Vegas.

Kamsky, who quit chess for three years to pursue a career in medicine, may well have continued to play a bit of practice chess with friends (though the joke is: are there many around?) or his father, Rustam, a former boxer who is much feared by opposing camps.

In a Sicilian game which lasted just 37 moves, Kamsky was simply beautiful in his play, leaving some shaking heads and the feeling of "what may have been" had he continued chess and veered towards medicine.

Khalifman, who survived a tough first round against Barua, was outplayed, and it is difficult to see him overturn that result against the tough crew-cut sporting Kamsky, looking every inch a martial practioner that he is. He used to do two hours of that plus some swimming and a couple of sets of tennis in the days he beat Vishwanathan Anand at Sanghinagar some years back.

While Kamsy held a lot of attention, Ivan Sokolov created the big upset in defeating pre-championship favourite Shirov.

Shirov was in big time trouble when his position crumbled. When Sokolov followed up with a nice attack on his King, Shirov couldn't avoid the mate. Shirov lasted 47 moves in a Petrofff defence where he had white.

Making up with black will be a touch-and-go affair for the Spain-based Shirov, whose big complaint these days has been the breakaway of Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand for a match that he believes is his right.

And then the young and promising Ruslan Ponomariov stunned Bulgarian Veselin Topalov in a 53-move Sicilian-Najdorf ,where the Russian had white.

Ponomariov introduced a new idea to which Topalov found a creative answer. However Topalov got into a Queen ending that was worse for him. The 15-year old Ukrainian, rated 2616, didn't let it slip away and was responsible for one of the major upsets of this round.

In other surprises, Sergei Tiviakov drew with Vladimir Kramnik despite being a pawn down and Zoltan Almasi lost to the Chinese Peng.

In some other interesting results,Vassily Ivanchuk beat Wahls, Short beat Fridman and Milos beat Valery Salov and Tony Miles scored a smooth win over Michael Krasenkow.

Judit Polgar, who had a crushing loss against Shirov in Eurotel recently, won her second round comfortably against Nielsen, who had come through a tie-breaker win against Joel Benjamin.

The old man of chess Viktor Korchnoi is still more than a handful as Sergei Dolmatov discovered. Dolmatov played the Leningrad variation, an opening that Korchnoi knew and mastered before Dolmatov was born. Dolmatov was hopelessly crushed in 22 moves.

The first big blunder of the championships came from Jonathan Speelman of England. The Englishman overlooked simple tactics against Boris Gelfand, lost his Queen and a pawn against a Rook and Bishop and Gelfand ground him him out in a 53-move Nimzo Indian in which Gelfand was white.

Round two - day one

Summary
Shock of the day: Ivan Sokolov upsetting the seedings, beating one of the favourites Alexi Shirov. But there is still one game for Shirov to come back and fight.

Rising star: Ruslan Ponmariov, who upset Super Gm Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.

Blunder of the day: Jon Speelman overlooking a simple tactic that resulted in him losing the queen and a pawn against a rook and a bishop. Result: he lost to Gelfand.

Daddy Cool: Viktor Korchnoi crushing young Sergei Dolmatov in 22 moves of an opening he was playing before his opponent had been born.

Game of the day: Kamsky, Gata - Khalifman, Alexander 1-0 37 B83 Sicilian
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Be2 Nc6 7. O-O Be7 8. Be3 O-O 9. f4 e5 10. Nxc6 bxc6 11. Kh1 Be6 12. Bf3 Bc4 13. Re1 Nd7 14. b3 Ba6 15. f5 Nf6 16. g4 h6 17. g5 hxg5 18. Bxg5 Nh7 19. Be3 Bb7 20. Rg1 Bf6 21. Rg3 d5 22. exd5 cxd5 23. Nxd5 e4 24. Nxf6+ Qxf6 25. Be2 Qxf5 26. Qd4 g5 27. Rf1 Qg6 28. Bc4 Rac8 29. h4 Rxc4 30. bxc4 g4 31. Rxg4 Qxg4 32. Rg1 Qxg1+ 33. Kxg1 f6 34. Qxa7 Rf7 35. Qb8+ Kg7 36. Qg3+ Kh8 37. Bh6 1-0
Results of Game one of Round 2 Ivanchuk, Vassily beat Wahls, Matthias
Aleksandrov, Aleksej drew with Svidler, Peter
Azmaiparashvili, Zurab drew with Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter
Ehlvest, Jaan drew with Bareev, Evgeny
Ponomariov, Ruslan beat Topalov, Veselin
Bauer, Christian drew with Leko, Peter
Tiviakov, Sergei drew with Kramnik, Vladimir
Gelfand, Boris beat Speelman, Jonathan
Timman, Jan beat Aronian, Levon
Lautier, Joel drew with Sakaev, Konstantin
Andersson, Ulf drew with Zvjaginsev, Vadim
Short, Nigel beat Fridman, Daniel
Smirin, Ilia drew with Psakhis, Lev
Akopian, Vladimir drew with Antonio, Rogelio jr
Dreev, Alexey beat Kotronias, Vasilios
Almasi, Zoltan lost to Peng Xiaomin
Milos, Gilberto beat Salov, Valery
Kamsky, Gata beat Khalifman, Alexander
Asrian, Karen beat Sadler, Matthew 1-0
Shirov, Alexei lost to Sokolov, Ivan
Movsesian, Sergei beat Dizdar, Goran
Magem Badals, Jordi drew with Tkachiev, Vladislav
Georgiev, Kiril beat Shaked, Tal
Korchnoi, Viktor beat Dolmatov, Sergey
Hamdouchi, Hichem lost to Beliavsky, Alexander
Leitao, Rafael beat Macieja, Bartlomiej
Stefansson, Hannes drew with Shipov, Sergei
Gulko, Boris drew with Fedorov, Alexei
Kobalija, Mihail lost to Adams, Michael
Krasenkow, Michal lost to Miles, Anthony
Yermolinsky, Alex drew with Rublevsky, Sergei
Polgar, Judit beat Nielsen, Peter Heine