Dortmund R06: Kramnik, Adams unstoppable

The Dortmund GM tournament is a ten-player round robin with six international stars and four German grandmasters. Top seed is Italian GM Fabiano Caruana, rated 2796 and ranked number three in the world, while "local boy" former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who has won this event no less than ten times (Caruana won it last year).

Round six report

Leko, Peter - Wang Hao ½-½
Wang Hao can thank his lucky star today for having survived what was an atrocious opening. White missed the killer move 21.Qh4!, a subtle and computer like maneuver that would have netted him an exchange. But even without this White's chances were still clearly preferable. Leko failed to be aggressive and eventually his advantage somehow dissipated as the double rook endgame was far from an easy position to win, despite having an extra pawn.

Naitisch, Arkadij - Adams, Michael 0-1
In what was a remarkably strange game, Naiditsch seemed to only have checkmate in his mind. He quickly launched piece after piece to the kingside trying to setup potential sacrifices against Black's kingside pawn structure. However these lunges were not backed by any positional considerations and White's center collapsed. Black won a pawn and then trapped White's bishop on h7 collecting an easy full point.

Khenkin, Igor - Caruana, Fabiano ½-½
In another strange game, Caruana deviated from his normal openings possibly with the intention of seeking a win from the start. Khenkin played normal chess and obtained a decent position but without any special advantage. The game really started with Khenkin's fantastic 25.Bxf7! a strong sacrifice that shattered Black's pawn structure for an exchange and demanded careful play from the Italian. The rest of the game was where many incomprehensible moves occurred. Despite consistently being worse, Caruana kept refusing to give perpetuals and seal the draw, which for some reason Khenkin kept allowing. In the endgame Khenkin missed many winning moves and finally blunder after blunder he spoiled his advantage and Caruana obtained a draw.

Meier, Georg - Andreikin, Dmitry ½-½
A quick draw without any big incidents.

Kramnik, Vladimir - Fridman, Daniel 1-0
Kramnik played a very impressive game today. He sacrificed an exchange and a pawn to obtain what looked like some questionable compensation. But the more one delves into the position the more obvious it becomes that Black was quickly running out of useful moves and that he was powerless to stop White's slow but powerful attack. Black tried running to the queenside with his king, but it was to no avail. A great combination starting with 29.Nd5! finished Black off.

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Standings

Dortmund 2013 – Schedule, pairings and results

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