Three draws in 6th round Dortmund

The Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund resumed on Wednesday with draws on all three boards. Vladimir Kramnik is still 1.5 points ahead of Le Quang Liem with four rounds to go.

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 6

Despite good fights on all three boards, the 6th round of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2011 saw no winner. This way Vladimir Kramnik kept his 1.5-point lead in the standings, and the Russian has excellent chances to win his 10th (!) title in Dortmund.

Le Quang Liem and Georg Meier were the first to finish their game. Like Magnus Carlsen in Biel, Meier invited his opponent to enter the potentially wild complications of the QGD Vienna, but the Vietnamese deviated with 5.Qa4+. White soon got a slightly better pawn structure, but the initiative was in Black's hands and after some precise moves the Vietnamese GM found a way to reach a drawn ending. "I'm slowly but surely finding my form," said Meier. "For me it's important that I warmed up now, and I hope that the blunders will be limited to the first half of the tournament."



Then, Ruslan Ponomariov and Vladimir Kramnik also split the point in a Ruy Lopez - in fact it was the first time that a game in this tournament started with the king's pawn! The Ukrainian avoided his opponent's Berlin Wall with 4. d3 but also in the variation with 4... Bc5 5. O-O Nd4 Kramnik knew exactly what he was doing. The tournament leader got some initiative after running with his g-pawn, but his opponent played accurately enough to hold the balance.



The longest game was between Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Giri. The American showed better chess after the rest day, and put pressure upon his young opponent throughout the game. Just before the time control Giri allowed a simple combination with which Nakamura won a pawn. The Dutchman reacted very well and managed to exchange many pieces and all pawns on the queenside, after it was easy to draw the game.

Games round 6

Game viewer by ChessTempo


Dortmund 2011 | Schedule & results

Round 1	21.07.11	15:00 CET		Round 6	27.07.11	15:00 CET
Meier	½-½	Le Quang Liem		Le Quang Liem	½-½	Meier
Kramnik	1-0	Ponomariov		Ponomariov	½-½	Kramnik
Giri	½-½	Nakamura		Nakamura	½-½	Giri
Round 2	22.07.11	15:00 CET		Round 7	28.07.11	15:00 CET
Le Quang Liem	½-½	Nakamura		Nakamura	-	Le Quang Liem
Ponomariov	1-0	Giri		Giri	-	Ponomariov
Meier	0-1	Kramnik		Kramnik	-	Meier
Round 3	23.07.11	15:00 CET		Round 8	29.07.11	15:00 CET
Kramnik	½-½	Le Quang Liem		Le Quang Liem	-	Kramnik
Giri	1-0	Meier		Meier	-	Giri
Nakamura	0-1	Ponomariov		Ponomariov	-	Nakamura
Round 4	24.07.11	15:00 CET		Round 9	30.07.11	15:00 CET
Giri	½-½	Le Quang Liem		Ponomariov	-	Le Quang Liem
Nakamura	0-1	Kramnik		Nakamura	-	Meier
Ponomariov	½-½	Meier		Giri	-	Kramnik
Round 5	25.07.11	15:00 CET		Round 10	31.07.11	13:00 CET
Le Quang Liem	1-0	Ponomariov		Le Quang Liem	-	Giri
Meier	½-½	Nakamura		Kramnik	-	Nakamura
Kramnik	1-0	Giri		Meier	-	Ponomariov

Dortmund 2011 | Round 6 Standings

Photos © Georgios Souleidis, more here

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