Baden-Baden GRENKE Chess Classic

Round two: Naiditsch beats Adams after epic battle

Michael Adams (above right) confessed afterwards (for the second day in a row!), “I had no idea what was going on”. At first it seemed as though Naiditsch, angry at letting his earlier edge slip, was making the classic mistake of pushing too hard for a win, but towards the second time control Adams found himself in a tough situation.

A first win for top German GM Arkadij Naiditsch

Second seed in Baden Baden: Italian GM Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano Caruana’s difficulties in last month’s Wijk aan Zee started with an early loss with the black pieces against Vishy Anand. Although that could of course happen to anyone, things soon went from bad to worse. When the dust had settled the young Italian had lost five games and almost 25 rating points, dropping not only out of the world Top Five but also the Top Ten. Caruana told the GRENKE Chess Classic press team that his performance there was the result of a whole combination of factors. One was that he was unwell for most of the event, but he was also without his coach Vladimir Chuchelov, who was focussing on one of his other students, Anish Giri. Here in Baden-Baden Vladimir is accompanying Fabiano, and a repetition of the Wijk aan Zee scenario doesn’t seem to be on the cards. For the second day in a row Caruana demonstrated deep preparation...

World Champion Vishy Anand during his game against Caruana

The second game to finish was the 26-move draw between German grandmasters Daniel Fridman (above) and Georg Meier. Fridman is a very funny man, and greeted IM Lawrence Trent in the press conference with, “you didn’t fall asleep?” True, it wasn’t spectacular chess to watch, but what emerged from the press conference was an insight into the subtleties that decide matters in the higher echelons of world chess. Meier revealed that “a lot happened in the early moves”, as Fridman managed to use a move-order trick to play a line of the Nimzo-Indian that Meier had successfully avoided in last year’s Dortmund tournament. Meier was left struggling to remember the analysis he’d done as a junior, while Fridman… claimed he hadn’t expected to succeed and also couldn’t remember the line!

German GM Georg Meier

The highlight of Saturday’s Round 3 looks set to be Caruana-Naiditsch. Will Naiditsch’s satisfaction at winning be enough to overcome the exhaustion of today’s game? In the same fixture in Dortmund last year the Italian only escaped by the skin of his teeth.

Report: Colin McGourty Photos: Georgios Souleidis

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.