Dortmund R8: Kramnik in striking distance

Dortmund GM tournament

After six rounds Michael Adams and Vladimir Kramnik were in the joint lead, with 5.0/7, two full points ahead of the field. In round seven Adams beat Igor Khenkin in a regular Caro-Kann, while Kramnik lost to Dmitry Andreikin in a Queen's Gambit. Wang Hao went badly wrong with a piece sacrifice and lost to Arjadij Naiditsch in 33 moves. Peter Leko drew a very promising game against Daniel Fridman.

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Michael Adams, playing black, drew a Closed Catalan against Georg Meier in 39 moves. Vladimir Kramnik needed 76 moves to grind down top seed Fabiano Caruana in an Exchange Gruenfeld. This meant that the former World Champion moved into striking distance, half a point behind the leader, whom he plays with black in the final round. Peter Leko defeated Arkadij Naiditsch after the German GM blundered badly on move 30, while Igor Khenkin beat the luckless Wang Hao in a King's Indian.

Replay the games of this round

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Standings after eight rounds

Cheating in the Dortmund Open

Suspected fraud overshadowed Chess Tournament

Shock at the Sparkassen Open: the tournament director of amateur chess tournament, which takes place in the prestigious Chess Meeting in the Town Hall, has disqualified a Bundesliga player. He was the favorite – but his winning streak clearly wasn't achieved with regular means. The tournament direction in Dortmund accused Bundesliga player Jens Kotainy, who is on the verge of becoming a grandmaster, of receiving moves on his cell phone, which he carried in his trouser pocket.

"We were watching this player around the clock and noticed irregularities," said tournament director Christian Goldschmidt said on Saturday. After each move Kotainy [who was leading the Open with 7.0/7 points] put his hand into his left pocket, so regularly that it aroused suspicious. "There have been rumors about his previous achievements," Goldschmidt said. The accusation: the player was receiving the moves of a computer in a kind of Morse code. The tournament direction checked the moves against those of the well-known chess engine Houdini, and found an up to 100% match.

On Friday Kotainy was asked to submit his cell phone, which appeared to be turned off. Goldschmidt: "Nevertheless, we asked him to surrender the phone before Saturday's game." It suddenly started to vibrate in the hand of the referee. "That was enough for a disqualification." The tournament direction asked the police to secure the evidence, but were not allowed to confiscate the cell phone.

Jens Kotainy confirmed that he had the cell phone in his pocket, but stated that it was switched off. "I'm not the only one with a cell phone in the tournament," he said. "But I did not cheat." What about the mysterious vibrations? "My brother used the phone before me," said Kotainy. His brother Gregory, said Kotainy, was a trained computer programmer who writes programs for Android phones. The installed program was an anti-theft app that reports via the Internet where it currently is located. If there is no Internet connection it vibrates every ten seconds, explained brother Gregory Kotainy.

Similar to the doping scandals in cycling the reputation of an entire sport is at stake. The President of the German Chess Federation Herbert Bastian are visibly nervous, but do not want prejudge this case. Gerd Kolbe, the tournament director of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting, was clearer: "We have a significant case here, one that has rained on our birthday party." The Chess Meeting is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

"Inhumane move" was the title of a report on fraud, suspicion and paranoia in chess that appeared in the prestigious German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Thursday. He has been refused admission to a tournament in Dormund, and the Bundesliga club SF Katernberg, under pressure of other players, removed him from their team list. At the Easter Open in Deizisau he had played practically like Houdini, when his game was broadcast online. In Bundesliga matches a week later it was the same. When the broadcast was interrupted due to technical proble, Kotainys's started playing human moves. In order to make thing more difficult for cheats the Bundesliga is planning to delay the broadcast in the future.

Dortmund 2013 – Schedule, pairings and results

Links All games in PGN You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.

Born in 1975 in Tuapse on the shores of the Black Sea, Vladimir Kramnik studied at the Botvinnik-Kasparov chess school. At 16 he was included in the Russian Olympiad team and scored a sensational 8.5/9, the best result at the Olympiad. After that followed a string of great tournament results, culminating in a world championship challenge. In 2000 Kramnik played the chess legend Garry Kasparov and beat him to take the title, which he successfully defended in 2004 against Peter Leko and 2006 against FIDE champion Veselin Topalov, whom he defeated to take the unified world championship title.

On this DVD Vladimir Kramnik retraces his career from talented schoolboy to World Champion in 2006. With humour and charm he describes his first successes, what it meant to be part of the Russian Gold Medal team at the Olympiad, and how he undertook the Herculean task of beating his former mentor and teacher Garry Kasparov. Kramnik dissects his wins against Leko and Topalov, giving us a vivid impression of the super-dramatic final games of the 2006 match. His commentary is full of useful advice and provides a fascinating insight into the thought processes that govern top level play.

The DVD contains more than six hours of video with narrative and game analysis. There are also five additional segments from an exclusive video interview on the intrigues that surrounded the 2006 world championship, and on the state of the chess world in general.

Vladmir Kramnik:
MY PATH TO THE TOP

• ChessMedia format
• on DVD-ROM
• Video running time: 6 hrs
• Language: English
• EAN 4027975004990
• recommended retail price:
  • 39.99 € incl. VAT
  • 33.61 € without VAT (for customers outside the European Union)
  • US $45.7 (without VAT)

• Review by Prof. Nagesh Havanur
• Review by Albert Silver
• Review in TWIC
• Review in Chess Cafe (PDF)
• Review in about.com
• Product description in PDF
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