Kramnik loses to Bareev, three black wins today

58th Russian Championship Superfinal

The final stage of the Russian Championship is taking place from December 19-30, 2005, in Moscow, with rounds starting each day at 15:00h local time. It is a 12 player round robin, with time controls of 100/40, then 50/20, 10/rest, with a 30 seconds increment from move one. The total prize fund is US $130,000, with $40,000 going to the winner

Round six report

Dreev-Volkov: Alexey Dreev was heading towards a working win over tail-ender Sergey Volkov (=1, –4 in the first five rounds). But after the first time control Dreev slowly lost control of the position and got himself into ever deeper trouble. At move 51 he gave up the exchange, and Volkov needed just nine more moves to finish him off.

Svidler-Khalifman: With two losses and no wins on the scoreboard, Alexander Khalifman seemed determined that today was the day, with black against the top seed. And he came close to succeeding. Peter Svidler was on the defence for most of the game, and he ended up struggling in an endgame with bishop, knight and four pawns vs rook, opposite colored bishop and three pawns for a draw. But he did succeed in saving it, and Khalifman is still waiting for his first full point in this event.

Morozevich-Zvjaginsev: This was a bit of a see-saw French Defence, with White gaining and then relinquishing the advantage, and in the end fighting for a draw. Vadim Zvjaginsev, this we know by now, has no undue repect for famous, high-rated opponents, but keeps playing imaginative, combative chess.

Kramnik-Bareev: This was a game between two grandmasters who have worked together extensively before (Bareev was instrumental to preparing Kramnik's Berlin Defence against Kasparov in 2000). But neither was giving the other any quarter, and the game looked like it was headed for a 50-move hard-fought draw. Then, once again in this tournament, disaster struck.

Kramnik,V (2739) - Bareev,E (2675) [D13]
ch-RUS Superfinal Moscow RUS (6), 24.12.2005
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 a6 5.cxd5 cxd5 6.Bf4 Nc6 7.Rc1 Bf5 8.e3 Rc8 9.Be2 e6 10.0-0 Bd6 11.Bxd6 Qxd6 12.Na4 0-0 13.Qb3 Rc7 14.Nc5 Rb8 15.Rc3 Bg4 16.h3 Bxf3 17.Bxf3 e5 18.Qb6 exd4 19.exd4 g6 20.Rd1 h5 21.b4 Kg7 22.Be2 Nd7 23.Nxd7 Rxd7 24.b5 axb5 25.Bxb5 Nd8 26.Qa7 Re7 27.Qc5 Re6 28.Rb1 Ra8 29.a4 Nc6 30.Qb6 Qe7 31.Bxc6 Re1+ 32.Kh2 Qd6+ 33.g3 Rxb1 34.Qxb1 bxc6 35.Qa1 Qf6 36.Rc2 h4 37.a5 Qf5.

Black has just moves his queen from f6-f5, attacking the opponent's rook. White can move it plausibly to d2 or b2 – but not 38.Ra2? because of 38...Rxa5! Do you see the full line? 39.Rxa5. (Vladimir could have tried fighting on with 39.Qb2. Now everything is forced: 39..Qxf2+ 40.Kh1 hxg3 41.Qg1 g2+ 42.Kh2 Qf4+ 43.Kxg2 Qd2+ 44.Kg3 Qxa5 45.Qe3, or 42.Qxg2 Qe1+ 43.Kh2 Qxa5, and in either case Black has two extra pawns. After 45...Qc7+ 46.Kg2 Qd6 Kramnik resigned. 0-1.

Motylev-Jakovenko: 22-year-old Dimitry Jakovenko is not doing at all bad in this tournament. So far he has not lost any games, got one by default against Morozevich, and today picked up a second point against Alexander Motylev. The 27-year-old Motylev, who seconded Peter Svidler at the world championship in San Luis, had started with four draws. Yesterday he lost to Rublevsky, and today continued on a losing streak.

Motylev,A (2632) - Jakovenko,D (2644) [C93]
ch-RUS Superfinal Moscow RUS (6), 24.12.2005
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d6 9.h3 Re8 10.d4 Bb7 11.Nbd2 Bf8 12.a3 h6 13.Bc2 Nb8 14.b3 Nbd7 15.Bb2 g6 16.a4 c6 17.Bd3 Bg7 18.Qc2 Nh5 19.Rad1 Nf4 20.Bf1 Ne6 21.d5 cxd5 22.axb5 axb5 23.Bxb5 Nc7 24.Ba4 Re6 25.b4 dxe4 26.Nxe4 Bxe4 27.Rxe4 d5 28.Ree1 Nb6 29.Bb3 Qe7 30.Bc1 Rc8 31.Be3 Nb5 32.Bc5?

With his last move (32.Be3-c5 instead of the obvious 32.Bb3xd5) Motylev give Jakovenko an almost forced exchange sacrifice: 32...Rxc5 33.bxc5 Qxc5 and now surely 34.Rc3 or Re1 was required, but: 34.Nd4 exd4 35.Rxe6 fxe6 36.Qxg6 Qe7 37.cxd4 Nd7 38.Qg3. Drops a pawn. At the end of this interlude Black will exchange queens, and then two knights for a a rook and two marvellous central passed pawns are enough to win the game. Qb4 39.Bc2 Nxd4 40.Bd3 Qb8 41.Qxb8+ Nxb8 42.Rb1 Nd7 43.g3 e5 44.Bg6 e4 45.Kg2 Ne5 46.Be8 Kh7 47.Rd1 Nd3 48.Rb1 Nc2 49.Rb7 Ne5 50.Ba4 Nd4 51.Rb8 Ndf3 52.Bb3 d4 53.Bd5 Nd2 54.Rb2 e3 55.fxe3 dxe3 56.Rb6 Nd3 57.Re6 Be5 58.Bb7 e2 59.Rxe5 Nxe5 60.Kf2 Nf1 61.Kxe2 Nxg3+ 62.Ke3 Nh5 63.Ke4 Nf7 64.Bc6 Kg6 65.h4 Kf6 66.Ba4 Ne5 67.Bc2 Ng7 68.Kf4 Ne6+ 69.Kg3 Nd4 70.Bb1 Ne2+ 71.Kf2 Nc3 72.Bc2 Nd7 0-1.

Statistics

Looking at the results of the games from the Superfinal in Moscow we see that the drawing percentage is fairly low, and that the percentage of black wins is unusually high for such an event. Of course the three decided games today gave black a big boost, but still it is still not commonplace to see 19% of the games decided this way.

If we look at the length of the games we see that aparte from the Morozevich default there were three games in 17 moves or less, and seven in 23 moves or less. Despite his one-mover against Morozevich it was Dimitry Jakovenko who has played the longest games so far: 286 moves in six games.

Current standings

Previous Results

Links

• Official web site of the event
• All games so far in PGN