World Champion Viswanathan Anand quickly disposed the challenge of GM Loek Van Wely of the Netherlands in the 13th and final round to finish second in the Corus Super GM tourney. World No. 1 Gary Kasparov of Russia played an exciting draw against Michael Adams of England to clinch the title with 9.0 points from 13 games. Anand with 8.5 points finished a clear second, as the game between Braingames champion GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Dutch GM Jeroen Piket, who were involved in an interesting duel, ended in a draw. Anand's finish has been exemplary. He won the last three games to end the tournament in style. All his victories have come over the Dutch opponents.

Playing white, Anand employed the fashionable English attack against the English attack of Van Wely and caught him off guard in the middle game. Van Wely conducted the queenside attack with a routine pawn roll but found to his amazement that his backward queen pawn paved way for white to capture key squares in the center. Anand obtained a positional advantage by the 20th move and then slowly started squeezing his opponent. Van Wely exchanged a three minor pieces but lost a pawn by force in the process. Anand thwarted further counterattack attempts by Van Wely in copybook fashion. Undeterred by the rook penetration by Van Wely on the seventh rank, Anand continued to hold the initiative and his extra pawn soon gave him a decisive advantage. In trying to avoid further exchange of pieces Van Wely found his rook trapped on the edge of the board and resigned on the 34th move. 

Kasparov and Adams played an exciting variation of the Catalan opening before signing the peace in 27 moves while Grandmaster Peter Leko of Hungary drew with GM Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in a Grunfeld defense game with black pieces. Grandmaster Sergei Tiviakov of the Netherlands sealed his tournament with a fine victory over GM Alexei Federov of Bulgaria in an off beat variation against the Sicilian defense with white pieces. 

Alexei Shirov who had a great run in the first half, finished rather soberly with three defeats in the second half. His final round game against Morozevich was quite complicated with Shirov holding the edge in the Sicilian game, but Morozevich hung on to take half a point. For veteran Dutch Grandmaster Jan Timman, who appeared a bit lost and exhausted in the closing stages, the tourney mercifully came to an end. The usually indefatigable Timman lost his final round game against Vassily Ivanchuk and would be happy to have a break, to regroup himself for the next tourney.

Round  13 Results