THE SUNDAY CHESS COLUMN
By Malcolm Pein
Sunday Telegraph/UK
Filed: 20/08/2006
Eyebrows were raised when Carsten Hensel the agent for the Classical
Chess World Champion Vladimir Kramnik claimed his charge would be happy
with a 50 per cent score at the Dortmund Sparkasse tournament. Hensel
claimed that since his man was due to play Veselin Topalov in September
in the world title unification match he would be keeping secret his
new ideas for the opening. In addition the burden of four games out
of seven with black was lowering Kramnik’s expectations he claimed.
Naturally after such a dire pronouncement Kramnik duly won the
tournament on a tie-break, despatching the Georgian GM Jobava Baadur
in just 15 moves, and winning the key battle against Peter Leko with
white in the last round. Leko had been winning the event to that point.
England’s Michael Adams was very solid. He defeated Boris Gelfand
and drew the rest. While Baadur was a newcomer to the tournament who
qualified by virtue of his victory at the 2005 Aeroflot Open, Levon
Aronian’s failure was a surprise. The Armenian, ranked world number
three, had swept all before him of late but here scored just 2/7.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 Kramnik 2743 d * d 1 d d d 1 4.5 2 Svidler 2742 d *
d d d d 1 1 4.5 3 Adams 2732 d d * d 1 d d d 4 4 Leko 2738 0 d d * d 1
1 d 4 5 Gelfand 2729 d d 0 d * d 1 1 4 6 Naiditsch 2664 d d d 0 d * d 1
3.5 7 Aronian 2761 d 0 d 0 0 d * d 2 8 Jobava 2651 0 0 d d 0 0 d * 1.5
V Kramnik- P Leko Sparkassen Dortmund (7) Nimzo-Indian
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 0-0 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3 b6 7.Bg5 Bb7
Many GMs play this with both colours, it has become a very popular line
8. f3 h6 9.Bh4 d5 10. e3 Nbd7 11. cxd5 Nxd5 The theory of this line
goes very deep. As in many lines of the Nimzo-Indian Black’s extra
development is a counterweight to White’s bishop pair 12.Bxd8 Nxc3
13.Bh4 Keeping the bishops 13. …Nd5 14.Bf2 c5 15. e4 Ne7 16.Ne2 Rac8
17.Nc3 cxd4 18.Bxd4 Nc5 19.Rd1 Rfd8 20.Be3 White has also played Bb5,
Be2 and Bxc5 20. …Rxd1+ 21.Kxd1 e5 22. b4 The first new move, 24.Kc2
Na4 25.Bd2 f5 was Bareev-Almasi 2003 22. …Ne6 23.Kc2 Nc6 24.Kb2 Kf8
25.Bc4 Ncd4 26.Bxe6! Very surprising but Kramnik’s remaining pieces
become active. Note that his king is good 26. …Nxe6 27.Nb5 Ra8 28. a4
Ba6 29.Na3! Rc8 30. b5 Bb7 31.Rc1! Rxc1 32.Kxc1 Very deep home analysis
I suspect, the plan of a4-a5 looks hard to meet 32. …Ke7 33. a5 bxa5
34.Bxa7 The white king is going to take the Black a pawn 34. …f5
34. …f6 35.Nc4 a4 36.Kb2 Nf4 37.Na5 Bc8 38. g3 Nd3+ 39.Ka3 35.
exf5 Nf4 36. g3 Nh3 37.Nc4 Ng5 38.Nxa5 Bd5 39. b6 Nxf3 40. h3 Ng5
41. b7 Bxb7 42.Nxb7 Nxh3 43.Bb6 Kd7 44.Be3 Ke7 45.Nc5 g6 46. fxg6
Kf6 47.Bxh6 Kxg6 48.Be3 and Black resigned.