Dortmund 2011: Kramnik Leads After Round 1
The last couple of Dortmunds have been a battle between Vladimir Kramnik and Ruslan Ponomariov, with the former world champion (full stop) defeating the erstwhile FIDE champion in 2009 and the reverse in 2010. This year the rivalry started in round 1, and Kramnik won with White to get the 2011 campaign off on the right foot. Kramnik came out of a 7...exd4 Classical King's Indian with an edge, and - excepting one inaccuracy each (from Kramnik on move 17 and Ponomariov on move 19) - was able to maintain it until Ponomariov finally broke near the time control.
It's a good start for Kramnik, especially since the other games were drawn. Georg Meier - Le Quang Liem looked like an instance of mega-prep by Le, who used about half an hour for the game's 38 moves. (Meier didn't use all that much time either, and they were finished while the other games were barely into the middlegame.) Against Le's Gruenfeld, Meier tried to improve with 15.Nxb5 over the move chosen in Buhmann-Le Quang Liem from Khanty Mansyisk last year. There was nothing to it. Le's play was straightforward and logical (and surely worked out at home long before), and with his active pieces he regained his sacrificed pawn to reach a drawn rook ending.
Finally, Giri-Nakamura was a long and complicated battle with both players trying to win through most of the game. The tension never really resolved, and the result was a perpetual.
In years past, Dortmund has been the "calmest" (read: dullest) of the Grand Slam events, but it looks like a good tournament and a feisty field this year.
Round 2 Pairings:
- Le - Nakamura
- Ponomariov - Giri
- Meier - Kramnik
Tournament site here, games (with my light comments) here.
Reader Comments (1)
Dennis, it seems you mixed up something: 2010 was Ponomariov's first-ever participation in Dortmund (in 2009, Kramnik's main rival was - supposedly - Carlsen). For the long-term history of Dortmund, see http://www.teleschach.de/schachtage/ (in German, but crosstables etc. should be self-explanatory).
By the way, Dortmund 2010 was - at least statistically - not that dull already, with 14 decisive games out of 30 (Bazna this year had 10/30 decisive games). Maybe because it had, for the first time in Dortmund history, anti-draw rules, maybe also because of the field which included Mamedyarov, Ponomariov and Le Quang Liem.
[DM: Yes, I had recalled their dramatic game from the 2009 Tal Memorial and transposed it into Dortmund.]