Dortmund 2018, Round 2
Greetings again, Caissaic comrades! We're back again with Round 2 coverage of Dortmund, with this round featuring a bit more blood than yesterday.
The game Meier-Giri, however, certainly did not provide any hemoglobin for viewing pleasure. Meier is known for having a very technical style that often verges towards peaceful, and Giri is almost notorious for his ability to force draws and avoid danger. (As an aside, as to the latter, this strikes me as particularly unfair - Giri has a tremendous sense of humour about these aspersions, so he doesn't actively attempt to disperse these barbs, but his rating and results deserve far more than chuckles. He's one of the best players in the world, and 99.9% of players can't even imagine playing up to his level.) Meier (via his usual 1. Nf3 move order) deployed the Catalan, which in my eyes is in need of a major rejuvenation - Black has discovered quite a few equalizing methods against this once feared squeezing weapon, and it's been quite awhile since I've seen Black in any form of trouble in a top level game. The game quickly zoomed towards opposite coloured bishops and an efficient liquidation towards peace.
Nisipeanu-Duda (the Battle of the Hyphenation) finished quickly as well, but with a decisive result. Nisipeanu chose a 3. Bb5+ Sicilian, and the game found its way to one of the biggest traditional main lines of the Rossolimo. Duda was the first to play an offbeat move, with 10...Ng8 being a very strange choice (10...Ne4 is by far the usual choice, with hundreds of master games). I'm not sure if this discombobulated Nisipeanu, but the game took a strategically interesting path - Duda very confidently castled queenside, and the game was set for a fascinating battle with central pressure, dueling outposts, and opposite side pawn storms. Suddenly, however, Nisipeanu dropped a pawn! I'm not sure if this was a sacrifice, or a failure to recognize that 19. b4 g4 20. b5 is an in between move that maintains the balance. Whatever it was, Duda snatched off the pawn and very confidently converted his material edge with zero counterplay.
The most incredible game of the day has to be Wojtaszek-Kramnik. Kramnik took a break from his usual QGD/Semi-Tarrasch adventures to give the Nimzo a try, and Wojtaszek tried a slightly offbeat Bg5/e3 mixture that has recently seen a couple of outings in top flight chess - it is most notorious for featuring in last year's game Bai Jinshi-Ding Liren, which in my eyes was the most beautiful game of 2017 (which I have listed in the game link in the notes, if you haven't partaken of the aesthetic experience). This game took a much more tranquil course, with Kramnik turning the tables on his usual Semi-Tarrasch adventures and taking on an isolated but passed d pawn for himself. The game was following a logical course, with Black perhaps having a slightly better side of a draw...and Kramnik suddenly sacrificed his queen! Kramnik had a high profile explosion of overly optimistic decisions in the recent Candidates tournament (which produced some slightly harsh but hilarious memes), and this decision certainly continues the trend. Neither player handled the resulting imbalance in the most efficient way, and the evaluation pingponged between equal and better for White. Wojtaszek seems to have missed a clear chance for an edge with 41. Qf6 (the move after the time control - a somewhat cursed move number!), and immediately afterwards the players found their way to a repetition.
Finally, the game Kovalev-Nepomniachtchi was another Rossolimo, with White transitioning from a Lopez style structure to a bit of a Meran/c3 Sicilian structure. White never really gained anything from the opening, with his pawns on a5 and e5 allowing outpost squares more than really cramping Black. 26. Nxe6 essentially turned out to be a fancy transmutation of material, with White gaining a knight, rook, and pawn for a queen. I'm surprised Nepo allowed so much liquidation - he very quickly traded into an ending where White has bishop, rook, and two pawns for the queen. There were a couple of moments where Nepo appears to have been in real danger, and Kovalev was always playing "for two results only". Kovalev missed some opportunities to test Nepo more thoroughly, but with a completely open board and the queen's propensity for sudden checking mechanisms (see yesterday's Nepo-Giri game!) making technical progress would have been quite difficult. Peace was agreed to on move 90.
Games here.