AWFUL RESULT FOR ARONIAN
by Malcolm Pein

The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
August 8, 2006 Tuesday

The Classical Chess world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, had a
morale-boosting victory at the Sparkasse Dortmund Chess Festival. A
last-round victory over Peter Leko took him to 4.5/7 and first place
on a tie-break from Peter Svidler.

Kramnik’s next battle is a world title unification match against
Veselin Topalov.

England’s Michael Adams managed to maintain his "plus one" score and
drew his last two games against Arkady Naiditsch and Peter Svidler.

The tournament was a catastrophe for the world number three, Levon
Aronian, who has had a superb year so far. Aronian lost his last two
games and ended on 2/7. His last- round defeat at the hands of the
Israeli number one, Boris Gelfand, is below.

Scores: 1-2 Kramnik (Russia), Svidler (Russia) 4.5/7; 3-5 Leko
(Hungary), Adams (England), Gelfand (Israel) 4; 6 Naiditsch (Germany)
3.5; 7 Aronian (Armenia) 2; 8 Baadur (Georgia) 1.5.

B Gelfand – L Aronian

Sparkassen Dortmund (7)

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.Qc2 Bb7 6.Bg2 c5 7.d5! (A
well-known type of sacrifice, but unusual in this position) 7…exd5
8.cxd5 Bxd5 9.Nc3 Bc6 10.e4 (White has development and some weak
squares on the d-file to work with) 10…Be7 11.Bf4 0-0 12.0-0-0
(e4-e5 looks like a serious threat, but White never carries it out)
12…Na6 13.Qe2 Nb4 14.a3 Qc8 15.Kb1 (Not 15.axb4 cxb4 16.Nb1 Bxe4+)
15…a5 16.Ne5 Re8 17.Rhe1 Bf8 18.g4! (Threat of g4-g5 winning the
Nf6) 18…g6 19.Bg3 Re6 20.f4 d6 (20…Bb7 21.f5 Re7 22.Nb5 or just
axb4 is very strong) 21.Nxc6 Nxc6 22.Nb5 Ne8 23.e5! dxe5 24.Bd5 a4
(24…Re7 25.fxe5 Ra6 26.e6) 25.fxe5 Ng7 26.Qf3 (Of course, White
could take on e6, but then a Black knight might land on d4 and
he would almost have a position) 26…Rb8 27.Nd6! Bxd6 28.exd6 Nd4
(28…Rxe1 29.Qxf7+ Kh8 30.Rxe1) 29.Rxd4! Rxe1+ 30.Bxe1 cxd4 31.Qxf7+
Kh8 32.d7 Qc5 33.Bb4 1-0 (In view of 33.Bb4 Qc7 34.Bf8)

Aronian

Gelfand

Position after 33.Bb4.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress