5/12/2011 – You might be wondering why no mention is made of Grischuk-Kramnik in the title. The reason is that it was hardly a game. The first semifinal encounter of the Candidates and they draw in sixteen moves? That is both embarrassing to the players and disrespectful to the fans. Kamsky and Gelfand played a Najdorf that quickly simplified to a balanced endgame, and drew. Game one report.
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May 2011
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From 3 to 27 May 2011 the FIDE Candidates matches are being held in Kazan,
the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, with eight strong GMs competing to
qualify as Challenger for the 2012 World Champion match. Time controls in the
four regular games are 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the
next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, plus an additional
30 seconds per move starting from move 61. In case of a tie there will be four
rapid chess games, and if the tie is still not broken then up to five two-game
blitz matches 5'+3". Finally there may be a sudden-death final decider.
The prize fund of the candidates is 500,000 Euros.
Scoreboard
Nat.
Rtg
G1
G2
G3
G4
R1
R2
R3
R4
Tot.
Perf
Vladimir Kramnik
RUS
2785
½
0.5
Alexander Grischuk
RUS
2747
½
0.5
Nat.
Rtg
G1
G2
G3
G4
R1
R2
R3
R4
Tot.
Perf
Boris Gelfand
ISR
2733
½
0.5
Gata Kamsky
USA
2732
½
0.5
Semifinals – Game one
The first game of the Candidates was certainly a letdown for fans hoping for some prime fighting chess. The 'story' of the day was the unexpected sixteen-move draw between Grischuk and Kramnik. With only four classical games to establish an advantage in the match, one would have thought all the stops would be pulled to win, but perhaps the structure is also to blame. After all, if it ends 2-2, they get another four-game match, this time of rapid games, and if you thought that was your best chance, then like it or not, it would make sense to steer for them. In any case, the onus was on Grischuk to try and press his advantage as White, rather than Kramnik to rock the boat unnecessarily as Black.
The shortest game of the Candidates so far. Match strategy?
Vladimir Kramnik, consistent to a fault in his results
Kamsky certainly had his hands full in terms of preparation against Gelfand. After all, the Israeli is a renowned expert in the Petroff, and despite having played the Najdorf against Mamedyarov in the first round, he could have easily returned to his main weapon. The question was answered on move one, and they followed a few known games to a simplified middlegame where White had been unable to work up an edge. Kamsky was unable to break the pattern, and they eventually drew after 36 moves.
Kamsky was unable to make a dent in Gelfand's Najdorf
This position is pretty much identical to the reference games in the notes, where was unable to really build an advantage. Perhaps Gata will have something a little more venemous prepared for game three. 23...Kf8 24.Rda1 Rec8 25.Ke1 Ke7 26.Kd2 R3c5 27.R5a4 f5 28.Rb4 R8c7 29.exf5 Bxf5 30.Re1+ Kf7 31.Rb6 Rd5 32.c3 Bc8 33.b4 Re7 34.Ra1 Ke8 35.b5 Rc7 36.bxa6 bxa6 1/2-1/2.[Click
to replay]
The audience for the first game. Expect a packed house on the weekend.
Young spectators, some of whom are getting their first taste of top chess
In order to give you a taste of the Daily Video wrap-ups, here is the video with Danny King's show:
GM Danny King analyzing Topalov-Kamsky during his Daily Wrap-Up show on Playchess
The games are being broadcast live on
the FIDE web site and on the chess server Playchess.com.
If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase
Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program to
read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!
In addition you can watch the games live on a regular browser on our
live broadcast site. There is automated computer analysis running on a powerful machine (12 cores
running
at
4.25 GHz and 48 GB of RAM)
loaned by Team Hiarcs using a special version of Hiarcs.
The Russian Chess Federation is providing excellent hi-res
live video coverage from
the playing hall in Kazan, with live commentary (in Russian).
The games are being broadcast live on the
official web site and on the server Playchess.com.
If you are not a Playchess member you can download ChessBase
Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program
to read, replay and analyse PGN games.
2nd Move Anti-Sicilian Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 12090 games from Mega 2025 or the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 874 are annotated.
Ruy Lopez Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 12092 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 1276 are annotated.
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