Dortmund R3: All games drawn, but some excitement

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.

Round three report

All games drawn, with an average length of under 30 moves, no change in the cross tables. Sounds bad, but there were sparks of excitement in the third round. Arkadij Naiditsch, playing black against Vladimir Kramnik, got into a fairly unpleasant position out of the opening:

Kramnik,V (2743) - Naiditsch,A (2664) [E04]
Sparkassen Dortmund GER (3), 01.08.2006
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2 dxc4 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Qa4 Nd7 7.Qxc4 Nb6 8.Qb5 Bd7 9.Qb3 Na5 10.Qd3 c5

Naiditsch has seen this line before, having won two games last year, against Nielsen and Avrukh, who played 10.Qc2 instead of Kramnik's novel 10.Qd3. Arkadij reacted with a daring pawn advance, 10...c5, that looked as if it simply lost material: 11.dxc5 Bxc5 12.Qc3 attacking the bishop and the pawn on g7 (although taking on c5 is not quite straightforward: 12...Nd5 13.Qxc5 is followed by 13...Rc8 and Black is fine). 12...Rc8 13.Qxg7 Bf8.

Naiditsch was apparently spoiling for a fight, with 14.Qxh8 Rxc1+ 15.Kd2 Rxh1 16.Bxh1 Ba4+ 17.Qd4 Nac4+, although after 18.Ke1 Bg7 19.Qxd8+ (19.Qxg7 Qd1#) 19...Kxd8 White would appear to have the upper hand. But Kramnik decided instead to swap queens immediately: 14.Qg5 Qxg5 15.Bxg5 Bg7 16.Nbd2 h6 17.Bf4 Bxb2 18.Rb1 Nd5 19.Bd6 Bg7 20.Ne5 Nc3. Here Garry Kasparov, kibitzing on Playchess.com, advocated 20...Rc2 with a clear advantage for Black. 21.Rc1 Nxa2 22.Rxc8+ Bxc8 23.0-0 Nc3 24.Ra1 Nb5 25.Rxa5 Nxd6 26.Nec4 Ke7 27.Rxa7 Bd4 28.Ra8 Nxc4 29.Nxc4 b5 30.e3 Bd7 31.exd4 Rxa8 32.Bxa8 bxc4 33.Kf1 Kd6 34.Ke2 Bc6 35.Bxc6 Kxc6 36.Kd2 Kd5 37.Kc3 Ke4 38.Kxc4 Kf3 39.d5 exd5+ 40.Kxd5 Kxf2 41.Ke5 Kg2 42.Kf6 Kxh2 43.Kxf7 Kxg3 44.Kg6 ½-½. The game lasted four hours.

Peter Leko vs Michael Adams looked quite wild, with Black getting a queen and pawn for three minor pieces and an optically great position by move 14. But it turns out that this variation is known (it was used by Alex Shabalov in a Playchess blitz tournament in 2004) and on move 25 Adams went for a draw by repetition, instead of heeding the pleas of the visitors to Playchess.com and playing ...Rd6 to continue his winning attempts.

Baadur Jobava vs Levon Aronian was a 21 move draw in the Four Knights Variation of the English, while Boris Gelfand vs Peter Svidler, an Exchange Grünfeld, lasted 29 moves and ended in a draw.

Standings after three rounds

• Download all games so far in PGN
• Game three between the best female players in Germany and USA, Elisabeth Pähtz and Irina Krush, ended in a 35-move draw. Here are all the games of this match.

Full Schedule and Results

Links

• Official web site
• All ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2006
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2005
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2004
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2003