AS Nick Faulks has informed you, I got elected as the honorary treasurer of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) at the Turin General Assembly. One of my first tasks has been to prepare the budget for 2007 for the forthcoming presidential board meeting. This will be held in Elista, Russia, a place your travel correspondent is unlikely to visit.

It is the capital of the Kalmyk Republic (the only Buddhist republic in Europe) and part of the Russian Federation.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (pictured) is the President of the Kalmyk Republic as well as FIDE and is the main sponsor of the World Championship Match, which will take place at the same time in Elista, between FIDE world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.

Kramnik claims to be the “classic” world champion, having defeated Garry Kasparov in 2000 and then only defended the title once, winning a drawn match with a victory in the last game against Peter Leko in 2004, so retaining his title as the holder.

Until recently, Topalov would have been regarded as a firm favourite, having had excellent results over the past two years and now the highest rated player on the Rating List by 34 points and 70 points ahead of Kramnik.

Kramnik has been ill over the past couple of years and has performed poorly accordingly. However, at the Turin Olympiad, he seemed back to his old form and produced the highest rating performance of the Olympiad — Topalov did not play.

For this week’s game, I have chosen a game from ten years ago, played at the Novgorod Tournament in 2006, with notes based on those by Dr. John Nunn in his edition of Dr. Max Euwe’s The Development of Chess Style<$>.

It is interesting that writing in 1996/7, he added a final chapter titled The Future (1997 onwards), in which he gives the names Anand, Kramnik and Topalov, who he believed then were the most likely successors to Kasparov.

Topalov-Kramnik

Novgorod 1996

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bc4 Qb6 (Diagram 1) 7. Nxc6!? Bac6 8. 0-0 e6 9. Qe2 Nd7 10. B3 Be7 11. Bb2 0-0 12. Na4 Qc7 13.f4 Bb7 14. Rad1 Rae8?!

A rather mysterious move which does not turn out very well. Black’s main problem is to decide what to do with his central pawns. The obvious move is 14. . . . d5, but after 15. Bd3 White already threatens 16. exd5, followed by a double bishop sacrifice on h7 and g7. In this line Black suffers from the lack of minor pieces on the kingside. It looks better to move the other rook to e8, so as to allow . . . Bf8 supporting the kingside.

15. Rd3

An impressively direct attacking plan. Utilising the weakness of g7, White switches his rook to an attacking position.

15. . . . c5 16. Bb5!

A very strong move. White wants to eliminate the d7-knight, so that Black cannot meet Rg3 by playing a piece to f6. There is also a positional motivation behind this move. With this type of pawn structure, White often builds up by Bd3 and c4, but then he faces a problem: he would like to activate the d3-bishop by e4-e5, but this blocks the other bishop.

Topalov’s solution is simply to exchange off the troublesome light-squared bishop, and devote all his energy to expanding the role of his dark-squared bishop.

16. . . . Bc6 17. Bxc6 Qxc6 18.c4 Rd8 19. Rfd1 Rfe8 (Diagram 2)<$>

Black has an unpleasantly passive position. His d6-pawn is weak and White has strong pressure both along the d-file and against Black’s kingside. Thanks to the preceding bishop exchange Black has no chance of forcing through . . . d5 and no counter play along the b7-g2 diagonal.

20. Qf3 Qc7 21. Qg3 Nf6 22. Nc3 a6 23. Qh3<$>

White decides to build up his attack by clearing space for the rook to occupy g3. Moreover, White might play f5 at some stage. It is interesting to see how Topalov carefully builds up his attack without making any strategic concessions or creating any significant weaknesses.

23. . . . Qc6 24. Rg3 Kh8 25. Re1 Qc8 26. Ree3! Rg8 27. Nd1

Unveiling the bishop’s diagonal and preparing to swing the knight to the kingside via f2 and g4. For the moment Black cannot play 27. . . . d5 since his e7-bishop is undefended

28. f5! (Diagram 3)<$>

With the double threat: 29. fxe6 and 29 Bxf6 Bxf6 30 Qxh7+!, possible now as g6 is covered by the pawn.

28. . . . e5 29. Nc3 Bd8 30. Nd5 h6 31. Bc1! Nxd5 32. Exd5 Bf6 33. Re4 Qf8<$>

If 33. . . . Kh7 34 Reg4 with the unanswerable threat of Bxh6

34. Reg4 (Diagram 4)<$>

Here, too Black cannot prevent Bxh6 and so resigned.