Tal 07: Gelfand beats Nakamura, Kramnik loses

The Eighth International Tal Memorial Chess Tournament is being held from June, 13 to 24, 2013, with a rest days on June 16 and June 20. The rounds generally start at 15:00h (=3 p.m.) Moscow time, with the first round starting at 6 p.m. and the final round at 1 p.m. Accommodation is in the Ritz-Carlton, Moscow, Tverskaya str. 3, while the event takes place in the in New Technologies Center Digital October, in Moscow. The tournament has ten invited players and is a round robin with time controls of one hour and 40 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds for each move starting from move one. Full information on special rules, regulation, prize money, etc. can be found in our initial report.

Round seven report

Nakamura, Hikaru - Gelfand, Boris 0-1
Nakamura tackled Gelfand's Sveshnikov head-on, without using any of the side variations to avoid it or one of the ultra positional systems that has become lately popular against it. He was doing quite well out of the opening, but as is usual in this system, as soon as he took a pawn and was up material Black's counterplay became quite strong. After Gelfand regained his pawn, the pair of bishops coupled with the passed a-pawn created problems for White. In time pressure Gelfand went for a surprisingly powerful attack against the enemy king, and despite only having two minor pieces remaining he wove a mating net that forced to choose between losing a piece or transposing into a lost king and pawn endgame.

Gelfand showed that even two minor pieces are enough to create mating threats.

Kramnik, Vladimir - Andreikin, Dmitry 0-1
Andreikin's openings keep being spot on, this time his handling of the Catalan allowed him equality without issues. Inexplicably, Kramnik blundered with 27.Ke3? which allowed Black to secure a powerful bishop on b3. The combined strength of Black's minor pieces won two pawns on the queenside, after which all Andreikin had to do was push the pawns forward to collect a full point. He did precisely that without any sort of counterplay.

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar - Anand, Vishy ½-½
The idea of giving up a pawn in the Semi-Slav in return for free development and pressure against the remaining isolated d-pawn is a common one. Anand employed this precisely and Mamedyarov was unable to retain his extra pawn, so the World Champion obtained a relatively effortless draw.

Carlsen, Magnus - Morozevich, Alexander ½-½
Morozevich's Caro-Kann allowed him to trade many pieces early on. The structure also became symmetrical when Black broke the center with e5, and neither side was left with any realistic winning chances from very early on.

Carlsen's game today was rather uneventful.

Karjakin, Sergey - Caruana, Fabiano ½-½
Karjakin was able to obtain some pressure from this Spanish opening but Caruana's position remained solid. The Russian probed for weaknesses, took the initiative and placed his pieces as strongly as he could. Eventually he even was able to bring the enemy king into the center and not feeling so safe. Alas, Caruana's position resisted the onslaught and although Karjakin won a piece, he ran out of pawns and the Italian held the Rook and Knight vs. Rook endgame.

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All pictures by Etery Kublashvili

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