Dortmund R5 – Leko beats Nielsen with black

Round five report

Nielsen vs Leko. The big Dane is about to suffer his first loss in this tournament

Nielsen vs Leko: The Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen produced a novelty, (Ba5 instead of the normal Bc4) on move 13 of an Open Catalan. A few inaccuracies, e.g. 17.Rc2 gave Leko equality and then the initiative. By move 28 he had won a pawn and achieved the kind of position he is really good at. Nielsen never really had a chance. It was the only decisive game on this day.

GMs Klaus Bischoff and Helmut Pfleger having fun commenting the game via infrared headphones for the audience in the State Theatre in Dortmund

Kramnik vs Adams saw the classical chess world champion get into a bit of trouble when he allowed his f3 knight to be exchanged and the pawn structure in front of his king to be ruined. After that Kramnik was fighting for a draw at most. Adams attacked vigorously, but all he got in the end was an extra pawn in an opposite coloured bishop ending which led to a draw in 58 moves.

Bacrot vs Topalov: Black pinned his hopes on a distant passed pawn which White could pick up, and so it was the Frenchman who was a pawn up by move 47. However, in spite of trying every imaginable manoeuvre for the next 46 moves Bacrot was unable to overcome the defence of the top seeded player.

Dortmund commentator Klaus Bishof (left) analysing the game Bacrot-Topalov on TV ChessBase. On the right is the host of the show, IM Oliver Reeh.

Naiditsch vs van Wely was a long, convoluted game with the Dutch GM playing for a black win. However Loek van Wely could not overcome the defence of the German talent, who settled matters with an instructive "wrong bishop" ending.

Naiditsch,A (2612) - Van Wely,L (2655) [B42]
It Dortmund GER (5), 12.07.2005

Even a computer can understand the immediate draw here. Fritz 8 displays it after 0:00 seconds of deliberation:

Yes, 57.Bh3 Kd3 58.Bc8 Kc3 59.Bxa6 Kxb4 60.Bxb5 Kxb5 leaves Black a bishop and pawn up, but since the white king can reach the queening square of a1 there is no way Black is going to be able to dislodge him from there with his wrong coloured bishop.

Svidler vs Sutovsky ended in a 29-move draw, which some may have superficially considered a bit tame. However when Emil Sutovsky analysed it on TV ChessBase people saw that what goes on in the GM's mind during the game is infinitely more exciting than the moves that are actually executed on the chessboard. "He is a tactic monster," commented a visitor on Playchess.com, after seeing the lines Sutovsky demonstrated on the commentary board.

Emil Sutovsky on TV ChessBase, eloquently explaining his draw against Svidler

You can replay the video and follow the analysis on the JavaScript board. Naturally on the Playchess server this is synchronised, and the pieces move automatically as the GM moves them.

• Click here to watch the video
• Click here to replay Sutovsky's analysis

Remember that our regular TV ChessBase live broadcasts will be conducted every evening at around 19:30h Central European Time from Monday until the end of the tournament.

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Links

• Official web site
• All ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2005
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2004
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2003