Chess: How does White win?

Summer has brought with it an logjam of elite tournaments, the first of which ended yesterday in Ningbo, China, with Armenia winning gold at the World Team Championship ahead of hosts China, Ukraine taking bronze.

Elsewhere, Russia's Vladimir Kramnik is again channelling his form of old with a truly remarkable performance at the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Germany. The former world champion continued his winning streak by beating the young Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri in round five to take his unbeaten score to 4.5/5, and he now leads the field by 1.5-points at the midpoint break.

Kramnik's +4 score equates to a tournament performance, so far, in excess of 3100; and on the unofficial live ratings, he's again reclaimed the Russian No 1 spot ahead of Sergey Karjakin, and at 2797 now within reach of storming back into the "2800 club" alongside Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand and Levon Aronian.

Carlsen, though, is also back to his winning ways at Biel after losing to the young French star Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in round five. The world No 1 stormed back to overpower the Swiss No 1 Yannik Pelletier in round six to further extended his lead at the top to 13/16 (using the 3/1/0 scoring system – 4.5/6 in old money), three points clear of Russia's Alexander Morozevich.

M Carlsen – Y Pelletier

Biel ACCENTUS GM, (6)

French Defence, Rubinstein variation

1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nd7 5 g3 Be7 6 Bg2 Ngf6 7 Nc3 0–0 8 Nf3 Nd5 9 Qd3 Nb4 10 Qd2 c5 11 0–0 cxd4 12 Nxd4 Nb6 13 a3 e5 14 axb4 exd4 15 Nb5 Bf6 16 Rd1 Bg4 17 f3 Bf5 18 g4 a6 19 Nxd4 Bxd4+ 20 Qxd4 Bxc2 21 Qxd8 Raxd8 22 Rxd8 Rxd8 23 f4 Rd7 24 b5! Rd1+ 25 Kf2 axb5 26 Bxb7 f5 27 Bf3 Rd8 28 Ra5 fxg4 29 Bxg4 Bd3 30 Be6+ Kh8 31 b3 h6 32 Bb2 Nd5 33 Ra7 Nf6 34 Rf7 Rd6 35 f5 Bc2 36 Rf8+ Kh7 37 Bxf6 gxf6 38 Rxf6 Rd2+ 39 Ke3 Rd3+ 40 Ke2 h5 41 Rf7+ Kh6 42 Rc7 1–0