Zurich R6: Caruana wins by a full point

In one of the strongest tournaments of the year the World Champion Viswanathan Anand (India) is facing the former title-holder Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), last year’s World Championship challenger Boris Gelfand (Israel) and the rising star Fabiano Caruana (Italy). At the Savoy Hotel, Paradeplatz, Zurich, the four masters are playing a double round-robin tournament from 23 February to 1 March 2013.

Round six report

Anand, Vishy – Kramnik, Vladimir 1-0
The Ruy Lopez is one of those openings that will never go out of style. It's solid, it's flexible, it gives both players interesting chances and there are a multitude of ideas to play with – and the subtleties are endless. Anand chose an early d3 and promptly followed by going into an Exchange Ruy setup once Kramnik had committed to his bishop on c5. However this didn't go so well for the World Champion, as Kramnik slowly but surely outplayed him. Already by move 17 only Black could be better. The tables turned very quickly when Kramnik played the horrific blunder 21...Qb8?? The trade of queens might have still allowed him equality, but instead he found himself down material and forced to resign! Chess is an incredibly unforgiving sport...

We hand over the game commentary to our guest annotator from Georgia IM Zura Javakhadze.

Postgame analysis with Viswanathan Anand

Caruana, Fabiano – Gelfand, Boris 1-0
Like the Ruy, the Catalan is an opening that is never out of fashion. This time Caruana obtained a pawn advantage shortly after the opening, but this was hardly enough to win as there were heavy simplifications and all the pawns ended up on the same side of the board. Just when it seemed like Gelfand had got most of his problems under control, he started making some strange decisions, starting with 50... fxg4+?! as opposed to simply retaking with the h-pawn. Even then, the game should still have been headed to a draw until the unbelievable and unexplainable 55...h4?? after which Caruana simply scooped the pawn and had a winning two pawn advantage! This sensational turn of events allows Caruana to win Zurich, 2013!

Watch the live commentary and the postmortem of the two players:

Final standings

With this win 20-year-old Fabiano Caruana has gained twelve rating points and climbed from place eleven in the latest FIDE rankings to place seven in the Live Chess Ratings, as calculated on March 1st 2013, at 17:55 GMT, for all players rated 2700 and higher. Vladimir Kramnik loses nine rating points and has slipped below Levon Aronian once again (but has managed to stay in the 2800+ club). Here are the top ten in the live ratings.

Live streams of the game

In the following videos commentators GM Yannick Pelletier and IM Werner Hug analyse the games as they progress, and also interview the players after they are over.

Video impressions from the closing ceremony

This report includes a film about the famous Zurich Tournament of 1953, with many of the best players in the world taking part, and interviews with many of them at a much later date. Here is the final table of the tournament, which was a 15-player double round robin.

You can find six annotated games from the tournament here, and 63 black-and-white photos here.

Schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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