Dortmund, Round 1: Carlsen Leads
There weren't any fireworks in round 1 of the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting, but the one decisive game, Carlsen-Jakovenko, was very much worth watching. The other games - Leko-Kramnik and Naiditsch-Bacrot - were of primarily theoretical interest. Kramnik equalized very easily in a Catalan and the game was a (dead) draw in 24 moves, while Bacrot demonstrated Black's thematic drawing resources in a trendy line of the Marshall Gambit.
By contrast, the Carlsen-Jakovenko did not peter out into a routine draw. The players headed into the Berlin Wall variation, and although nothing new happened for the first 25 moves or so the ending that resulted after 30 moves was fascinating. At a glance, it didn't seem as if Black should have any problems, but within 10 moves Jakovenko - the world's #5 player and a fine technician - was completely lost. I've done my best to puzzle out what went wrong, and you can see my analysis of all three games here.
By contrast, the Carlsen-Jakovenko did not peter out into a routine draw. The players headed into the Berlin Wall variation, and although nothing new happened for the first 25 moves or so the ending that resulted after 30 moves was fascinating. At a glance, it didn't seem as if Black should have any problems, but within 10 moves Jakovenko - the world's #5 player and a fine technician - was completely lost. I've done my best to puzzle out what went wrong, and you can see my analysis of all three games here.
Posted by Dennis Monokroussos on
Thursday July 2, 2009 at 4:39pm