Adams levels score with thumping win

Tripoli:

Grandmaster Michael Adams of England struck back with vengeance crushing GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan in the third game of the finals of the 17th world chess championship. Having lost the second game on Wednesday, Adams leveled scores with his finely crafted victory last night to level the scores 1.5 points each in this six-game match where the winner takes home 1,00,000 US Dollars while the package for the loser is USD 70,000. Taking advantage The rest of the day will probably do a world of good for Kasimdzhanov, as it is not easy to come back strongly after the kind of loss he suffered. The Uzbek was outplayed in all departments of the game. Adams pulled one back in Kasimdzhanov's favourite Sicilian Paulsen, an opening that had yielded the latter good results against strong opposition thus far. Playing the middle game thematically and yet with a pinch of originality, Adams got a stronghold on the queenside in the middle game and never looked back. It was on the 26th move that Kasimdzhanov faltered for the first time in the game as he lost a pawn through a simple series of moves and also gave Adams a firm control in the central files. A step closer to victory In the remaining part of the game, even as Kasimdzhanov tried hard, the defence was never easy as Adams rotated his pieces in masterly fashion, exerting pressure with every move and eventually knocking down two queenside pawns. A temporary respite was made available by Adams thereafter as he gave back one of his passed pawn but the result was never in doubt after a tricky move order weakened KasimdzhanovFs kingside further. The game lasted 47 moves. The match is now down to last three games and Kasimdzhanov will have white in two of them. Ideally the Uzbek is the favourite now but the chess pundits believe that this one will be extended till the tiebreak. An edge up And, if it does go that far, Kasimdzhanov will definitely have an edge over Adams who is yet to play a tiebreaker. The Uzbek has ousted the top seed, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, third seed Alexander Grishchuk of Russia and fourth seed Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in first set of tiebreak games itself that is an indication of his stronger nerves in the faster time control version. (PTI)