Dortmund R9: Nakamura beats Meier, 10th victory for Kramnik

Vladimir Kramnik on Saturday won the Sparkassen Chess Meeting for the 10th time. The Russian quickly drew with Anish Giri to secure first place. Hikaru Nakamura won his first game, against Georg Meier. Ruslan Ponomariov and Le Quang Liem drew.

General info

The 39th Sparkassen Chess Meeting takes place July 21-31, 2011 in the City Theater of Dortmund, Germany. Like Biel, it's a 6-player double round robin event. This year Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Ruslan Ponomariov, Anish Giri, Le Quang Liem and Georg Meier play. For the second time Dortmund uses an anti-draw rule: the players are not allowed to offer a draw during the game. The game will be declared a draw when a win for either side is not possible any more, or in case of a three-fold repetition.

Round 9

It was not a surprise: Vladimir Kramnik clinched his 10th title in Dortmund today, after a quick draw with Anish Giri. It happened so quickly that the author of this report arrived too late to catch the players, arriving about two hours into the round. In a Catalan which the Russian plays with both colors, there were 18 moves of theory. To be honest not much happened afterwards and the two started repeating at move 25. Just like Magnus Carlsen in Biel, Kramnik won the round robin with a round to spare. The Russian is now virtually rated 2798, exactly 25 points behind Carlsen's live rating. Hikarua Nakamura finally won a game in Dortmund. He probably didn't do any preparation and instead chose a move he plays every now and then: 1.g3. What followed was some kind of Pirc reversed, something that wasn't dangerous at all for Georg Meier. But apparently Nakamura, who hasn't been successful in the main lines so far, just wanted a position to play. His strategy worked: when he started to create pressure on the queenside, his opponent started to play inaccurately. White managed to get a queenside pawn majority, supported by a very active queen. In an already difficult position Meier blundered: Nakamura-Meier Dortmund, 2011 In timetrouble Meier played 33... Rxa4?? and could resign after 34. b6! 1-0 A nice line would have been 33... Rb2 34. Qb7 axb5 35. a5! Nc5 36. a6! Ra2 37. Qxb5 (37. a7 is too much: 37... Nxb7 38. cxb7 Rxa7 39. b8=Q c6) 37... Qf8 (37... Nxa6 38. Rd1) 38. Rd1 Rxa6 39. Rd5 Ra1+ 40. Bf1 Rc1 41. Kg2! +-. The most tenacious was 33... axb5 but even after this Black probably cannot save himself, as can be seen in the game viewer below. Ruslan Ponomariov and Le Quang Liem drew in a Sicilian Scheveningen that started with 1. Nf3 c5 2.e4. The struggle that followed wasn't very Sicilian-like but interesting anyway. To avoid getting into trouble the Vietnamese GM sacrificed a pawn at some point, but he had seen that he would always win it back. Eventually an opposite-colored bishop ending was reached where White's passed pawn on the queenside was worthless.

Games round 9

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Photos © Georgios Souleidis, more here

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC