Dortmund Round 1

Submitted by SonofPearl on Thu, 07/02/2009 at 1:52pm.

The first round of the Dortmund super-tournament saw Magnus Carlsen (pictured) defeat Dmitry Jakovenko to take an early lead.

Jakovenko tried to blunt Carlsen's attacking flair with the Berlin defence, but Carlsen showed his maturity with a display of flawless endgame technique to gradually bring home the full point.

Peter Leko hasn't beaten Vladimir Kramnik in a long time-control game since he lost to the Russian in their world championship clash in 2004, and he didn't break the hoodoo today.

Leko tried the Catalan but Kramnik held the draw comfortably in just 24 moves.

Leko and Kramnik at the ceremonial start to their game (pic from the offical site).

Naiditsch versus Bacrot also ended in a draw. Games start at 3pm local time (0900 EDT) and the official site is broadcasting the games on a 15 minute delay. Today's games:

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| 2298 reads | 10 comments |

4 votes:

Comments:

by Pinoy_Tigran - 4 months ago
Caloocan North Philippines

Member Since: Sep 2008
Member Points: 184

just play the gane and your learning to apprecites the ganes given, any negative comment from less rated player doesn't matter most...you still play the game, patzer!!??

by Nimzoblanca - 4 months ago
United States

Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 142

A classic Bishop vs Knight end game battle. Fischer use to win games like this.

by Ravens - 4 months ago
United States

Member Since: Feb 2009
Member Points: 147

I MET CARLSEN BEFORE HE PLAY AMAZINGLY FUTURE WORLD CAHMPION

by DrawMaster - 4 months ago
United States

Member Since: Dec 2008
Member Points: 545

What's marvelous about the kind of play Carlsen showed was that a) we can understand it as we go back over it, but b) he could plan and execute it OTB whereas the vast majority of us would surely stumble even if given the plan.

by idosheepallnight - 4 months ago
United States

Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 1230

I would say Calsons end game plan was straightword if you dont like the word simple. He rammed a pawn through on the K side and ran his king over the Q side to score the other pawns first.