Hoogeveen: Kramnik beats Polgar, leads by a full point

15th Unive Tournament 2011 in Hoogeveen, Netherlands

The double round robin Crown Group has four players: Vladimir Kramnik, Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier Lagrave and Judit Polgar, have an average rating of 2732, making this a Category 20 event. The time controls are 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from move one. The rounds are from October 16 to 22, with a free day on the 19th.

There are also side tournaments: the Unive Open is a nine-round Swiss with around 90 players with a minimum rating of 2000. It has a prize fund of €7,500, with a first prize of €3,000. The Amateur Tournament is in two groups: a Morning and an Afternoon Group, each with a maximum of 84 players. The first prize for both groups is €250.

Round two

Judit Polgar had never won a classical tournament game against Vladimir Kramnik, losing ten times and achieving nine draws (her score against him in rapid play are even more disastrous). In this, their twentieth the Hungarian GM, strongest female player in history, at long last... no, wait a minute, that did not happen!

Mate in 45? Yes, that is where we are today. Someone with a powerful machine announced it on Playchess while the game was still in progress. Scary, right?

You can still load this game on Playchess and see Fritz 13 announce mate in 45

Such real-time mate announcements simply mean: the engine has found an absolutely certain way to force a mate in 45 moves, at the very latest. It does not necessarily mean that this is the shortest possible mate (as in a chess problem).

It will interest our software users to know that these evaluations are stored permanently in the Let's Check "cloud", so that anyone with Fritz 13 can click on the "Let's Check" button see the latest analysis. Naturally, in the meantime other computers and other users have been working on the position, probably with heavy tablebase support, and they may have found a way to force mate in a smaller number of moves. All we can say is "Let's Check".

The game Anish Giri vs Maxime Vachier Legrave looked promising, with opposite side castling, but it turned into a relatively effortless 24-move draw by the French GM with the black pieces.

Round three

The tournament bulletin calls it "a friendly and peaceful day," speculating: "Maybe it was because of the upcoming rest day, because all players seemed quite satisfied with their half points obtained without much difficulty. A zero before a rest day give the player a heavy burden to carry for the next two days."

Judit and Anish analyse their Scotch Four Knights game, Maxime and Vladimir watch

Judit Polgar and Anish Giri, according to the tournament bulletin, "spent as much time analysing their not very exciting game as they had spent for the game itself, exploring the microscopic threats and super-accurate defensive manoeuvers in positions that most chess players would push aside as boring." Maxime Vachier Lagrave and Vladimir Kramnik had taken one move longer in their only slightly more exciting game (opposite castling) to reach a peaceful conclusion.

Round four

This was a wild and complicated game, full of missed opportunities – see for yourself

Anish Giri and Vladimir Kramnik played a long, hard-fought game in which the younger player was pressing, but Kramnik was able to hold and retain his full point lead (with two rounds to go).

Schedule and results

A double rainbow over Hoogeveen: the promise that there will be two exciting rounds?

Pictures by the official web site.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN: Crown Group + Open (courtesy TWIC) 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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

Copyright ChessBase