Dortmund R7: Karpov visits, Mamedyarov strikes back

In round 7 of the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess-Meeting, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov took revenge for yesterday's sad loss while Anatoly Karpov visited the tournament he won seventeen years ago.

Perhaps the most exciting event of the day was not one of the games in the super tournament, but FIDE Presidential candidate Anatoly Karpov's visit to the Dortmund Chess-Meeting - even though he only made one chess move today.

He did give press conferences, interviews and posed for the many photographers who had been invited to Dortmund. Karpov has been very busy lately lobbying for his presidency in various countries all over the world, so it's no surprise he shows up in Germany. At the time of writing, it's not yet known whether Karpov made any important announcements in Dortmund.



But back to chess. Supposing Liem Quang Le honoured the Twelfth World Champion by playing the Caro-Kann today might perhaps be a little too far-fetched, but he certainly did good business, easily drawing Arkadij Naiditsch.



In a pretty much unknown position after just 10 moves, Quang Le went for 11...c3 after which he seemed to have no problems whatsoever. Indeed, the Vietnamese afterwards explained that "in this sideline of the Caro-Kann, Black has so many possibilities that it's not difficult to deviate". Quang Le continues to impress in this tournament, comfortably defending his second place in the standings, ahead of former World Champion Kramnik.



Slightly more exciting was the game between the two Russians, Kramnik and Ponomariov. Kramnik no doubt wanted to try something serious with the white pieces (the opening was a Queen's Indian) but with some accurate defensive operations, Ponomariov stayed in control all the time.



It looks like Black may be in a bit of trouble, but 18...Qh4! is a very clever move that keeps the dynamic equilibirum. After 19.Nxe4 Bxe4 20.Bxe4 fxe4 21.Qxe4 Rae8 22.e3 e5!



Black has plenty of counterplay in the center and Kramnik subsequently couldn't find anything concrete to play for. The game was drawn after 37 moves.

The game of the day was, of course, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's sweet revenge for yesterday's blunder against Naiditsch. Today, he beat the unfortunate Peter Leko in a fine positional game. In a quiet English Opening, the Azeri slowly but steadily increased the pressure on Leko's position, putting all his active pieces on light squares until the moment was there to harvest.



22.Ncxb6! Rxb6 23.Nxb6 Qxb6 24.Qxc5 Qd8 25.d4!

25...exd4 26.e4 Actually the computer engines are even more enthusiastic about the natural 26.Rfd1 after which White seems to be just winning. But Shakh's move isn't bad at all as he still crashes through in the center sooner or later. Leko couldn't cope with the pressure and though it still looked tricky for a couple of moves, Mamedyarov kept his cool this time and collected the point at move 39.

With his victory, Mamedyarov again moves up into second place together with Quang Le. They face each other in the next round, while Ponomariov will try to increase his lead with White against Naiditsch. We presume Leko-Kramnik is not unlikely to end in a quick draw, though perhaps the Hungarian will think back to the fifth match game in 2004. Let's hope he'll find the inspiration to play a great game once more against his former World Championship rival.

Standings after 7 rounds:

1. Ponomariov 4,5 2. Le Quang, Mamedyarov 4 4. Kramnik 3,5 5. Naiditsch 3 6. Leko 2

Games start daily at 15.00 CET and can be followed live here.

Dortmund Games round 7

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Previous Chessvibes report on Dortmund