Dortmund R2: Anand wins heavyweight bout

Round two – Friday, July 23

The Elo-centric conventional wisdom is that Anand and Svidler will come through Group 1 to meet Kramnik and Leko out of Group 2. Anand may have thrown a spanner in the works today by beating his group co-favorite in a very smooth performance. Svidler felt compelled to sacrifice his backwards d-pawn to maintain counterplay, but Anand's king's knight was a SWAT team of defense all on its own!

Vishy Anand, the first to draw blood in Dortmund

When you sacrifice material for an attack against India's Viswanathan Anand you'd better hope you have more than "chances." The world's second-ranked player is legendary for his nearly instantaneous skills of calculation. This makes his defensive ability second to none as his opponents have to fight the board and the clock. Over the years Anand has saved quite a few hopeless positions (not that he really sees all that many inferior positions).

Anand's stirring steed, here shown by ChessBase 8's "piece path" annotation, performed non-stop gymnastics while discombobulating Svidler's pieces. It finally gave its life for a bishop and Anand was almost home free with his extra pawn. He still had a few weaknesses to cover and the queens to exchange, then it was into a rook endgame that he liquidated quickly. Okay, it wasn't all that easy, but Anand sure made it look that way.

World number nine Peter Svidler, discombobulated by world number two Anand

In the other marquee battle, Peter Leko held off Vladimir Kramnik in a preview of their September-October classical world championship match. Kramnik kept threatening to build up pressure in the center but Leko kept defusing it just in time and the draw was agreed on move 30.

Vladimir Kramnik, held to a draw by his Dannemann challenger Leko

With this result it looks like Leko will head into their match with his career plus score against Kramnik intact. It's currently at +1 and the Hungarian will have white in their next encounter in the prelims. Of course there is always the chance that they could meet in the final, although someone will have to get through Anand for that to happen!

Peter Leko, Hungarian wizz kid who has matured into the world's number five player

Victor Bologan again gave the fans and sponsors their money's worth as he tried to bamboozle teen star Sergey Karjakin in a knight vs bishop endgame. The defending champion from Moldova did everything he could but his young opponent refused to blunder. In two days Karjakin has drawn with black against the classical world champion and held against the reigning Dortmund champion! Tomorrow he will face Leko, the championship challenger.

Naiditsch-Rublevsky, position after 32...Rd8

This one was a riveting game of attack and counterattack that left the real fireworks for the notes. The German hope developed a menacing position, but Rublevsky had it all under control. His last move ignored the threat to his g4 knight with a counter against White's weak back rank.

If 33.Rxg4?? Black wins with 33...Rxd3! 34.Rgh4 f5 35.g6 Kf8 and White is defenseless. A disheartened Naiditsch bailed out with 33.Rh4 Nf2+ 34.Kg1 Nxd3 35.Rgh3 Kf8 and after exchanges he decided to offer a time-trouble draw instead of play out the endgame.

The draw left them tied in the middle of Group 1 between Anand and Svidler. Group 2 has yet to see a decisive game.

Participants

Full schedule and scoresheet