Baden Baden R3: Bloodshed and violence

Baden-Baden GRENKE Chess Classic

Round three: Bloodshed and violence

Georg Meier (above) began the press conference of his game against the World Champion by reusing Fridman’s line from the day before: “You didn’t fall asleep during my game?”

It was the World Champion Anand (above) who did most of the talking, however, and it was evident he was frustrated with his failure to get any sort of real play against an opponent he outrated by 140 points. It wasn’t for a lack of trying – Vishy explained he wanted unbalanced play and went for a “slightly unpredictable opening” where Black makes concessions in the centre to post a strong knight on b4. Meier in turn was dreaming of pushing his f-pawn to generate play on the kingside and leave the b4-knight far from the action. Neither plan materialised.

That was a plus for the GRENKE Chess Classic's live broadcast, however, as the players were happy to comment on the state of play in the other games. They assessed Adams-Fridman as comfortable for White, with Vishy noting that “maybe 26.f5 was allowed too easily”. Meier, a Catalan expert himself, added that what was nice for White was that “you don’t need to think too much”.

Nevertheless, it seemed Fridman had everything under control until he nearly became another victim to fall into Adams’ quietly woven webs: “The problem was I thought it was a completely equal rook ending. Then I relaxed for a while and played some inaccurate move and the position became quite unpleasant in time trouble.” In the end he escaped with a slight scare and a much-delayed dinner.

Saturday’s real action, however, came in the showdown between the early leaders, Fabiano Caruana and Arkadij Naiditsch. Caruana has made a habit of surprising his opponents with deep opening preparation in Baden-Baden, but in Round 3 the shoe was on the other foot. Naiditsch’s eighth move took him out of book, and 10…a5 provoked Caruana into 11.Kb1?, a move Naiditsch described as a “big positional mistake”.

Naiditsch summed it up: “the bishop pair, the dark squares, you can’t get more in the Najdorf!” Chess is seldom easy, however, and from the press conference you got the impression that it was a question of what would triumph – Naiditsch’s optimism and belief in his position or Caruana’s objectivity?

The complications after 17...Nd4 were only the prelude to the drama, and Caruana and eventually Naiditsch were left with perilously little time to navigate the hair-raising position that arose. They’d been there before, and Caruana told the press team afterwards that he’d drawn some comfort from the fact that Naiditsch had failed to win a similarly wild game in their last meeting in Dortmund. Back then Houdini assessed Naiditsch’s edge as over -7 while here his edge “only” reached -2, but Georg Meier, who was a fine co-commentator for IM Lawrence Trent, explained that you shouldn’t pay too much attention to the computer: “The problem is Black’s position is so close to strategically lost he needs to make the correct move every time”. Sure enough, Naiditsch faltered.

That dramatic reversal of fortune put Fabiano Caruana back in the world Top Ten and leaves him in the driving seat of the inaugural GRENKE Chess Classic on 2.5/3. Anand, Naiditsch and Fridman are a point behind on 1.5, while Adams and Meier have one point each.

The game of the day in round four on Sunday will be Adams-Caruana. Can the multiple English Champion hold back the rising Italian star? Find out by following the live coverage on the GRENKE Chess website from 15:00 CET.

Report: Colin McGourty Photos: Georgios Souleidis

Video commentary of round three by Lawrence Trent

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.