Dortmund R1: Svidler and Leko win

SPARKASSEN CHESS MEETING 2006 July 28 to August 6, 2006

The Dortmunder Sparkassen Chess Meeting is taking place in the State Theatre (Schauspielhaus) in Dortmund, Germany, from July 29th to August 6, 2006. It is a single round robin tournament with eight players, averaging 2720 Elo and making for a category 19 event.

The venue is the state theatre in Dortmund, Germany

Participants

Round one report

The first game to finish on the first day in Dortmund was Gelfand vs Kramnik, which lasted all of 19 moves and ended with all the pieces and all pawns save for one on each side still on the board.

Gelfand vs Kramnik was drawn in 19 moves

Peter Leko (left) neatly outplayed last year's surprise winner of Dortmund, Arkadij Naiditsch, mainly by using his central pawns.

Leko,P (2738) - Naiditsch,A (2664) [E11]
Sparkassen Dortmund GER (1), 29.07.2006
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 c5 5.Bxb4 cxb4 6.Bg2 0-0 7.Nf3 d6 8.0-0 Nc6 9.d5 exd5 10.cxd5 Ne7 11.Nh4 Qb6 12.e4 Bg4 13.Qb3 a5 14.h3 a4 15.Qd3 Bd7 16.Re1 Rfc8 17.Nf3 Ng6 18.Nbd2 a3 19.Rab1 Ba4 20.Qd4 Qxd4 21.Nxd4 Bc2 22.Rbc1 Bd3 23.Rxc8+ Rxc8 24.bxa3 bxa3 25.f4 h5 26.Re3 Ba6 27.Kf2 h4 28.Bf3 Rc1 29.e5 dxe5 30.fxe5 Nd7 31.e6 fxe6 32.dxe6

Black is already in terrible trouble, but the crunch comes after 32...Nde5 33.e7 (the pawn cannot be taken since the g-knight is forced to protect its brother on e5) 33...Rc8 34.Bh5 1-0.

Michael Adams had winning aspirations against the world's number three, Levon Aronian. But the Armenia liquidated to a rook ending with four against Adams' five pawns, but one that Aronian held without too much difficulty.

The game of the day was between Baadur Jobava, a hot new player who won the Aeroflot Open to get a place in the Dortmund Super-GM, and Peter Svidler, who is now firmly entrenched near the top of the rating list.

Jobava showed little respect and played a very nice attacking game that impressed former world champion Garry Kasparov who was kibitzing on Playchess.com. However when things did not work out as he had expected the young Georgian kept on pressing instead of forcing a draw. As is often the case in such situations his position slowly deteriorated until the draw was suddenly no longer an option and "Pyotr" Svidler was able to take home the full point with the black pieces.

Full Schedule and Results

Links

• Official web site
• All ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2005
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2004
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2003