LCC-R2: Kramnik and Giri score

Vlad doesn't fall for KID-ology

Round two report from London by John Saunders

The President of the British Chess Federation, Dominic Lawson (centre), introduces Anish Giri to
Boris Johnson a British Conservative Party politician, who has served as Mayor of London since 2008.

Results of round two

So to round two, with Britain’s Mickey Adams at the top of the table as the only winner in the first round. No distractions today, just straight down to business, with the only blonde mop-tops in sight being the children deputed to make the elite players first moves.

Today the number of decisive results doubled, as Vladimir Kramnik played what at least one of the spectating GMs described as ‘the perfect game’ to defeat Hikaru Nakamura, and Anish Giri opened his Olympia account at the expense of the overnight leader. Birthday celebrant Vishy Anand had another fairly uneventful draw, this time with Fabiano Caruana. Round 2 Scores: Giri, Kramnik 4, Adams 3, Anand 2, Caruana, Nakamura 1.

Let’s get the draw out of the way first. It lasted around 2 hours and 17 moves before a repetition brought it to the gentlest of conclusions. Having nothing to say about it, I’ll leave you with a nice picture of the players and move on.

Kramnik-Nakamura was a much more red-blooded affair. The US number one never shirks a challenge and was prepared to punt a King’s Indian Defence. He won a zinger of a game with the KID at the Classic against another world champion, Vishy Anand, a year or two ago so it’s been good to him. It is an opening much beloved of amateurs and lower-echelon professionals but, apart from the adventurous Hikaru and a couple of others, the 2700+ boys tend to give it a wide berth. Pressed by commentator Daniel King after the game to give his general opinion of the opening, Big Vlad more or less owned up to his view of it as unsound. “I admit I am always happy to see a King's Indian” was his eminently tweetable sound bite. That said, Vlad was less contemptuous than another VK – Viktor Korchnoi – tends to be when asked about the KID. Incidentally, Garry Kasparov himself used to be a KID-ologist, but some bad experiences at the young Vlad’s hands in the mid-1990s saw him remove it from his repertoire.

Vlad also told us that the line he had chosen against it was something he had had “in his pocket” for some time. Commentator Chris Ward cheekily asked if he had any more such ideas tucked away in his pocket but received only the trademark Vlad smile (and an audience laugh) by way of reply. Petrosian is alleged to have said of the line played in the game, which is named after him, that it was the line he used to feed his family.

After his excellent first round, Mickey Adams’ game against Anish Giri came as a bit of a disappointment to the home fans. He may have been caught out by a new move in the Catalan which left him behind in development and with a rather cramped game. He was more or less obliged to give up a pawn to unravel, with some hope of reaching a possible drawn endgame but the resourceful young Dutchman outplayed him rather effectively. It was all a bit like Wimbledon before Andy Murray. I wasn’t in the auditorium so I don’t know if any of the fans shouted out “c’mon, Tim!” out of sheer force of habit. An excellently played game by Anish Giri: this win takes him three places up the live rating list to 7th, just ahead of Kramnik and Nakamura. He’s now within ten points of the next man ahead of him, Vishy Anand, so his performance in London will be critical to where he is on the January 2015 rating list.

Current standings (traditional and three points for a win)

The second game of the challenge match between Gawain Jones and Romain Edouard, so Gawain is one up after two games. At the end Romain rather surprisingly baled out for a draw in a position where he stood a good chance of winning. An unexpected half-point birthday present for Gawain, who shares a birthday with Vishy Anand.

Photos by Ray Morris-Hill, John Saunders

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be 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.