Anand Recovers, Beats Baramidze In 6th Round Grenke Classic

After two unfortunate losses, GM Viswanathan Anand was the only winner in the penultimate round of the Grenke Chess Classic on Sunday.

The Indian grandmaster defeated GM David Baramidze with the white pieces in what was the longest game of the round.

GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Arkadij Naiditsch continue sharing the lead. If they are still tied for first place after tomorrow's final round, a playoff will decide matters.

It was one of those wins that don't bring much joy. GM Vishy Anand defeated GM David Baramidze after 65 moves, while his position was very promising as early as move 20.

“Somehow I tried to be very precise but then he started to get some resources. I never messed it up but it took a long time,” said Anand. The Indian joined Nigel Short and Jan Gustafsson after his game, but wasn't very cheerful. Early jokes by the commentators dropped dead in an awkward silence.

Baramidze has a narrow opening repertoire. He repeated his Breyer Ruy Lopez from his game against Carlsen two rounds before.

“Since he's been predictable with the Breyer, that was kind of the attraction of going there,” said Anand.

Surrendering the center with exd4 is often a concession in the Ruy Lopez, and here it was definitely the case. The resulting structure was good for White, and Black's big trade of two minor pieces for a rook and a pawn wasn't great either.

Anand never let his advantage slip away, but he was clearly annoyed he hadn't won quicker.

The top game between GM Fabiano Caruana and GM Magnus Carlsen was a short affair. The two repeated the first 11.5 moves from their Berlin Ending played in Shamkir last year, a game won by Caruana.

Interestingly, during the first 17 moves Carlsen had played eight times with his king's knight — almost something for Tim Krabbé's collection! Black's play also seemed somewhat passive (Bf8-b4-e7, Ng6-f8) but Caruana described his logical, active counterplan as “maybe too ambitious.”

The world champion quickly equalized and said: “I felt I should be in time with my stuff and Black should be absolutely fine.”

More interesting was GM Levon Aronian vs GM Mickey Adams, who played an old line of the English that was tested e.g. in the Kasparov-Karpov world championship match in Seville 1987. Besides, Adams' 11...h6 was an improvement over the famous game Kasparov-Ivanchuk, Moscow 1988.

Nigel Short asked: “Where did it all go wrong Levon?”

The Armenian replied: “Probably... the preparation! Nowadays they don't play these lines, it's an old line. Somehow I forgot to analyse it.”

Black was absolutely fine out of the opening and clearly better at move 24, but somehow Aronian managed to hang on. 

Adams: “I just in general don't play very well. That's the basic problem. That seems to be the feature of all my games. Today I played quite well for a while (...) but it was not impressive not to convert from the position I got.”

During the post-mortem there was a nice exchange between Aronian and Short.

Aronian: “You played the French. I remembered some of your brilliant losses.”

Short: “I don't know who is ruder about my chess, you or Magnus!”

GM Arkadij Naiditsch still leads with Carlsen after drawing GM Etienne Bacrot from a Bogo-Indian. One of the earliest tries in this line was by the famous Sultan Khan!

“I got a bit worried to get slightly worse. I was very happy to find 17...c6 and 18...Bh5,” said Naiditsch. The German GM even got the advantage when Bacrot played some imprecise moves.

2015 Grenke Classic | Round 6 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Pts	SB
1	Naiditsch,A	2706	2873		1	½	½		½	½	1	4.0/6	11.00
2	Carlsen,M	2865	2858	0		½		½	1	1	1	4.0/6	9.75
3	Caruana,F	2811	2824	½	½		½	1	½	½		3.5/6
4	Bacrot,E	2711	2737	½		½		½	½	½	½	3.0/6	8.50
5	Aronian,L	2777	2753		½	0	½		½	1	½	3.0/6	8.00
6	Adams,M	2738	2744	½	0	½	½	½			1	3.0/6	7.75
7	Anand,V	2797	2686	½	0	½	½	0			1	2.5/6
8	Baramidze,D	2594	2487	0	0		½	½	0	0		1.0/6

Here are the pairings for the last round.

Round seven ( February 9):

• Adams-Anand
• Naiditsch-Aronian
• Carlsen-Bacrot
• Baramidze-Caruana

@TarjeiJS @OisteinYggeseth @GRENKEChess Organiser just confirmed after reading regulations, match for first place if there is a tie.

— Ian Rogers (@GMIanRogers) February 8, 2015