6/4/2005 - The Marathon man would sprint to tie Adams today. It appears
the Leko has shaken off the jitters that affect him during the first three
games. It was Adams' turn to feel the jitters when he lost the first game
today with white. It was a tough loss, because Adams might have been able to
hold this game. But Leko showed his great endgame skill today.
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Game 5 opened with Adams pushing 1.e4. The players debated the Sicilian
Defense. By move 31, the game evolved into a queen and 5 pawns vs. Queen and
5 pawn endgame. By move 39 Leko had two pawn islands of connected pawns. On
island were e and d-pawns. the other were g and h-pawns. Adams had three
island, with two isolated pawns on the c and e-files. Leko would exploit
these isolated pawns and the fact that Adams had these two weaknesses. Its
hard to win a game when your opponent has only one weakness, However, you
can win a endgame if your opponent has two weakness. Exploiting his Adams'
passive position, Leko slowly brought his king around to the queenside to
attack Adams weak pawns. Adams was just shuffling his king back and forth,
waiting for the battle to begin. By move 49, Adams took Leko's e-pawn and
Leko's king had taken Adams c2-pawn. This cleared the way for Leko's d4
pawn. By move 50, Leko d-pawn was a square away from queening. Adams queen
relentless checked Leko's king and used his queen to set up pins to prevent
the pawn from queening. However these checks ran out and Leko forced the
exchange of queens with move 79 .. Qf1+. Faced with the exchange of queens
and the eventual queening of Leko's pawn, Adams resigned on move 80. Leko
draws to with in one game of tying the match.
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Game 6 - Peter Leko played 1.e4. The players debated the closed Ruy
Lopez. Still reeling with his loss in a game 5, Adams did not put up much
resistance in game 6. Adams blunders on move 27 .. Qa8. This will allow Leko
to grab Adams' isolated d pawn on move 29 . Qxd6. Adams would blunder again
on move 29 .. g6. This move created Luft for Adams king,
however it created a weakness that Leko would quickly pounce on. With the
pawn advance, Adams' Knight was no longer directly protected. Indirectly
Adams' bishop was shielding the knight from Leko's d6-queen. With his pawn
duo on e4 and f4, Leko would force Adams bishop away with 30. f5.
Adams responds with 30.. Nxe4 attacking Leko's queen. Leko is forced to
exchange bishop for the knight with 31. Bxe4. Adams responds with 31..
Qxe4 attacking Leko's e-knight. However Adams missed the following
intermezzo 32 Ng4. This move prevents Adams from checking Leko's king and
also threatened to fork Adams queen and king with Nf6+. With his
bishop still under attack by the f5-pawn and his queen under attack as well,
Adams resigned on move 32. Leko has sprinted and caught up with Adams. the
match is tied 3-3.
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