The Najdorf in Corus: Part I

Lately, I have annotated several games from the A-group at Corus. As usual, the Najdorf Sicilian has featured prominently in these top-level encounters. Have a look at Anand - van Wely from round 9, in which the dutchman essayed the highly theoretical Poisoned Pawn variation:

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3 A standard position for this variation. Anand now played the lively 10.e5!?



Amusingly, the players followed Motylev - Anand(!) from Round 2 until move 20:



Instead of trying to duplicate Anand's success with 20...Rd8, van Wely - presumably spooked by some home preparation from Vishy - tried 20...Nc6?! and lost quickly.

I uploaded my comments on this game in Chessbase format to FileDen. Download it here.

Another Najdorf game on the way for tomorrow!