Chess - The Scotsman 20/07/2012

LONDON, the capital of the chess world in the 19th century, is on its way to reclaiming that crown, with the city gearing up to stage an unprecedented triple crown of elite tournaments after the Olympics. In December, there’s the 4th London Chess Classic with an elite cast, and, in Marchnext year, there’s the Candidates Tournament. In addition to these, the schedule has just been announced for the latest Fide Grand Prix, and that kicks off in London in September at the spiritual home of chess – Simpson’s in the Strand.

Across the Channel in Germany, the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess-Meeting is the focus of attention now for the chess world. The fifth round on Tuesday started with Vladimir Kramnik and Ruslan Ponomariov in first equal ahead of Sergey Karjakin, but by the end of that round, the new Russian star joined them in a three-way tie at the top on 3.5/5, after he outplayed Germany’s Daniel Fridman in today’s game.

In today’s diagram, 25 Rc8+! won the exchange due to the undeveloped remaining Black rook – and Karjakin rightly assessed that 28 Nxg6+ hxg6 29 Nd6+ Ke7 30 Rxh8 Bxd6 was not so easy to win, therefore he kept his knight on the board.

In the end, the a-pawn proved to much for Fridman to deal with.

S Karjakin - D Fridman

Dortmund Sparkassen, (5)

Caro-Kann Defence, Advance variation

1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 Bf5 4 Nf3 e6 5 Be2 c5 6 Be3 Qb6 7 Nc3 Nc6 8 0–0 Qxb2 9 Qe1 cxd4 10 Bxd4 Nxd4 11 Nxd4 Bb4 12 Ndb5 Ba5 13 Rb1 Qxc2 14 Rb3 Ne7 15 Nd6+ Kf8 16 Nxb7 Bb6 17 Nd6 Ba5 18 Bf3 Bd3 19 Qc1 Qxc1 20 Rxc1 Ng6 21 Nxd5 Nxe5 22 Nf4 Nxf3+ 23 gxf3 Bg6 24 Rb7 Bb6 25 Rc8+! Rxc8 26 Nxc8 Bd4 27 Rb8 Be5 28 Ra8 Bxf4 29 Nxa7+ Ke7 30 Rxh8 Kd7 31 Nb5 Be5 32 a4 Kc6 33 Nc3 Bc2 34 a5 Bg6 35 Ne4 Kb5 36 Ra8 h6 37 Kg2 f5 38 Nd2 Bd6 39 a6 Bf4 40 Nc4 Bh5 41 a7 Ka6 42 Na5 Bc7 43 Rc8 Kxa7 44 Rxc7+ Kb6 45 Rxg7 Kxa5 46 Rh7 1–0