BONN game IV

It was a moderately interesting game.

In tennis the motto is: If your opponents breaks you, turn round and get a point yourself immediately.

In chess it seems to be: If you lose as White, take a breather with a draw.
Hmmmm.

QGD, 5.Bf4 system, as played my many top level players today. Replacing 5.Bg5.

One theme running through the middle game was the placement of Black's Knight: =e6= or =e4=, a dilemma coming up at various stages of the game.

Move 11....Bf5 was a bit of a stirrer. Played before of course, but still a bit of a surprise to Anand it seemed, as it set him thinking.

Move 13.Bxf6 had a few alternatives. One was 13.0-0 which looked reasonable too, but no promise of an advantage.

I had high hopes of 14.Qxd5 rather than the text 14.Nd4, but again, this line seems to fizzle out as well.

14....Ne6 was considered somewhat rash on Kramnik's part. I saw little wrong with it. 14...Ne4 would have helped White as would 14...Be4

If, as Anand suggested after the game, Kramnik had played 18...d4, rather than the text 18....Nc5, we could have had a bit of fun.

A real hornet's nest would have been opened up. Pity we won't ever get to see that.

As it was, game IV trundled into a draw without much excitement but sufficient interest to keep us admiring their OTB skill and home preparation.

BONN game III

Anand strikes the first blow.

It needn't have been a loss for Kramnik if he had put his Queen elsewhere.

Move 25.Qe2 was the losing move for White.

There were moments of great subtlety in this game. Far beyond my comprehension, although I was puzzled at the right time. First of all Anand's move 8....a6. Not that it was a novelty, but it was a psychological dart. Apparently. So Kasparov said.

Then there was a similarity to two games from 1946. The move order between move 12 and 15 was different and Anand may have been trying to trip Kramnik up, seeing that they were obviously both aware of the existence of these games, played over 60 years ago.
The outcome was that Black had to wait with Rg8.

I hope somebody somewhere will explain it to me.

Kramnik was using more time than Anand. He seemed to be trying to stir things up. This became clear at move 18 when he initiated an unexpected exchange on the =f4= square.
Actually, for a change I had seen this coming. It was something i would have played, even though the engines (including the powerful 8 proc Rybka ChessOK ) hadn't offered this in their top choices.
I was proud of myself, even though nobody took much notice.

Coming out of that scuffle, White had a choice of 19.Nxd4 and 19.Rxd4, and he opted for the former. Kramnik had by now used up one whole hour more than Anand. 44mins vs 1hr 44 mins.







Several forced sequences after move 25.Qb3 in my alternate versions. All leading to a firm draw by move 40.