Dortmund R01: Three wins, Caruana 2800 live

The 41st Sparkassen Chess-Meeting is taking place in the Dortmund State Theatre (Schauspielhaus). It is a ten-player round robin with six international stars and four top German grandmasters. Top seed is Italian GM Fabiano Caruana, rated 2796 and ranked number three in the world, while "local boy" former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who has won this event no less than ten time (Caruana won it last year).

In case you plan to attend: here is a map of the exact location in Dortmund.
Tickets are six Euros for a round (students four Euros), 35 Euros for the entire event.

Round one report

The former director of the German Chess Federation Horst Metzing executing the first move in Kramnik vs. Wang Hao

Kramnik, Vladimir - Wang Hao 1-0
Kramnik powered through Wang Hao's opening and obtained a quick extra pawn. However the Chinese was banking on being able to hold the endgame with the activity of his rook and queen. Unfortunately for him, however, he horribly blundered a rook on move 25 and had to resign. An easy start for big Vlad in game that lasted little more than an hour.

It happens... even to 2750+ players!

Andrejkin, Dmitry - Caruana, Fabiano 0-1
Caruana's go-to defense against 1.d4, the Gruenfeld, did not let him down. Not only did he obtain a comfortable position from the opening, he arguably got an advantage in the form of a powerful light squared bishop when his opponent's dark squared bishop was simply biting granite against his own pawn chain. A timely transfer of Black's king to the center consolidated his position and eventually a swift but powerful attack on the kingside cost Andrejkin an exchange and the game.

Meier, Giorg - Naiditsch, Arkadij 1-0
This duel between Germans saw another Gruenfeld. In this case Meier took an interesting approach: he sacrificed some development to obtain a superior pawn structure. Soon afterwards he converted that into another advantage, the pair of bishops, and was slowly able to gain ground against Naiditsch. White obtained a crushing position, but with a strange inaccuracy on move 32 he let slip his advantage somewhat. However his position was still strong and with some precise technique Meier brought in the full point.

Khenkin, Igor - Leko, Peter ½-½
In yet another Gruenfeld Khenkin decided to try the recently popular 5.Bd2 variation. Leko was extremely well prepared though and it's hard to say he had an advantage from the opening, but he certainly was no worse. His knight and active rook kept pressuring White's position well into the endgame

Fridman, Daniel - Adams, Michael ½-½
Fridman's opening was less than testing and Adams got a comfortable position from the beginning. He even enjoyed some pressure in the endgame against White's c and a pawns, but was unable to convert that into anything tangible. Fridman suffered for many moves but was able to hold the draw with a precise transition into a drawn pawn endgame, despite being down a pawn.

Replay the games of this round

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Dortmund 2013 – Schedule, pairings and results

Links Official tournament site (German) All games in PGN You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.