Baden Baden R7: Caruana leads as Meier claims first win

Baden-Baden GRENKE Chess Classic

Round seven: Caruana leads as Meier claims first win

If you were going to bet on a decisive result in Round 7 you’d be unlikely to look much further than Arkadij Naiditsch. The German firebrand seemed well on his way to prolonging his streak of five decisive games in a row when he played the provocative 9…g5!? against Michael Adams (Magnus Carlsen once lost a pre-Biel blitz game to Etienne Bacrot after 9…Qa5). After the 11…Nb8?! retreat White seemed to have an almost dream position, but when queens were exchanged Naiditsch felt the worst was over. Adams summed the game up: “I had a very nice position and then I gradually made it worse, steadily move by move, but not quite enough to lose.” Adams grip evaporated when he went for a tactical sequence on move 24. Although he was able to eliminate Black’s queenside pawns he ended up living dangerously in time trouble.

The other draw between Viswanathan Anand and Fabiano Caruana involved even more subtle manoeuvring, and there was more at stake – any decisive outcome was likely to determine the fate of the tournament. Caruana’s domination of the light squares makes a nice impression, but as with the Adams-Naiditsch game neither the players nor the computer could come up with a convincing way for White to exploit his domination.

The one win of the round saw Georg Meier (above) leapfrog Daniel Fridman out of bottom place. Meier finally converted a good position resulting from some more fine preparation with White – he mentioned 12.Nbd2 had been a novelty when he checked it – but it was in many ways a self-inflicted defeat for Fridman. When the two players met in Round 2 Fridman took a pragmatic decision, commenting, “If I started to calculate all the variations I might play the same but without time on the clock.” That was exactly his problem in Round 7.

Fridman described 41…Nd6?! as a typical 41st move, where a chess player is so relieved to make the time control with seconds to spare that he rushes and blunders on the next move. Both Fridman and Meier thought 41…Ne4! would offer more chances, with Georg noting his pieces were poorly coordinated. After that Meier’s pawns advanced inexorably, with some help from his opponent, but that wasn’t quite the end. The players continued even after Meier queened a pawn (at the second time of asking). Fridman was drawn to the idea of positions where a pawn and knight can compete with a queen, but Meier kept his cool and took home the full point: “I was seeing some ghosts, but not so many”.

Although that game transformed the standings at the bottom Fabiano Caruana continues to lead:

The pairings for Friday's Round 8 mean Meier has no time to rest on his laurels. He said after today's game that it's been a recent trend for him to do well with White and terribly with Black (before it was the opposite) - so facing the World Champion with the black pieces could be tricky.

Report by Colin McGourty, photos Georgios Souleidis, videos Macauley Peterson

Video reports of the round

Schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.