Levon Aronian defeated Vladimir Kramnik in a fine first game of the Zuerich Chess Challenge a six game match. Kramnik is an expert on both sides of the Moscow Variation of the Slav Defence and he had seen the game Gunina-Muzychuk that this game followed but he hadn't looked at it with a computer. For his part Aronian had expected the more aggressive 6.Bh4. Aronian said "When Vladimir went for 14.Re3 and then I started wondering what happens after 14...b5. I was lucky that the position was slightly better for black." Kramnik spent half an hour trying to find a reply after 16...Qe6 time he could have done with later on. After that Kramnik had to "to choose between several slightly worse positions." Aronian kept setting Kramnik problems and avoided exchanging into a technical ending (of which he wasn't that confident) and was rewarded with a decisive blunder by Kramnik with 40.Rd7? when 40...g5! won a piece. Aronian said that his main motivation in Zuerich was to learn what is needed to play on a very high level in a match against a top opponent such as Kramnik. For his part Kramnik said he hadn't "prepared that much". Game 2 Sunday 22nd April 2pm BST.

Zuerich Chess Challenge 2012 (1)

Mark Crowther (Sat Apr 21 17:41:00 2012)