Nice coverage!

Great commentary. Serge Shipov is ( "Aronian's a wonderful attacker, who can find fighting resources that even escape the electronic eye...") our Howard Cosell.

Nice! Great commentary! Very instructive!

Great commentary, GM Shipov! Thanks so much!

Yes, very entertaining work by GM Shipov! Thanks!

A technical question: can the board be made to self-reload, rather than manual refresh?

Thank you both. Nice game and enjoyable commentary.

Hats off to Mr. Shipov for guiding me understand the nuances of this 1st game of the match; I can't recall 'playing' move by move with complete absorption of what is given than going through this game! It made me feel that chess should be played by concept first then whatever happens, win or lose, one played it the 'manner', not necessarily the 'right way'. This game has given me hindsight about: 1)how difficult d4 opening is, 2) The concept on attack and counter-attack, and 3) importance of solid pawn formation.

Aronian seems to be at the peak of his chess career at this point! It was just one inaccuracy on the part of Vladimir but move after move, the impact of such was clearly instituted by Levon, grounding Kramnik's position from active to passive to resignation phase.

Is this tournament FIDE rated? I've seen comments saying that it is not (due to its being a "friendly match"), but the players' live ratings are being updated.

The 2800 club narrows down to two.

The funny thing with the press conference was that it turned out that Kramnik was the only one of the two to know of the game with which Gunina won the European Championship last month. As had been pointed out in analysis immediately after that game Muzychuk had the advantage but missed playing 16. ... Qe6. Kramnik said that he hadn't even looked at the position with an engine but trusted (the 300 points lower rated) Gunina's preparation. Aronian didn't know of the game but had no problems finding Qe6 and from then on Kramnik was just outplayed.

I followed both Shipov and Naiditsch's commentary and Shipovs was MUCH more informative. And he wasn't contantly hawking a certain weekly newsletter...

It was superb game of Aronian, Kramnik has no chance playing with him and Carlsen.
The real match for the crown is Aronian - Carlsen.
Anand is weak as Kramnik, he should play with Gelfand for the title - the best player of the wrong side of the age=

Excellent commentary by GM Shipov!
And it is nice to see two perfect gentlemen playing.

Yes, I do not care who wins the WC match, Aronian and Carlsen are clearly the world's two strongest players.

SINCE HE HAS GOTTEN INTO PHYSICAL SHAPE, ARONIAN MAY NOW BE STRONGER THAN CARLSEN!

Great game!

One more win for Aronian and he should be about equal to Carlsen on the live ratings I assume?

"Women weaken legs!"
That;s the reason of Kramnik and Topalov poor quality games.

Ya ya ... Aronian is super strong, best in the world .. bla bla.. ... did not he play Candidates ?? for WC you have to beat everyone in candidates and then play for Championship. And the other guy simply scared to loose so stepped away from the challenge. And these guys are referred as best players !! Well you like them that is a separate story , we all have our personal preferences. Thinking Anand/kramnik weaker is complete non-sense. let's not forget it is a friendly game and there is nothing at stake. When there is something at stake then nerve comes to picture and lots of other thing . That's is exactly where someone is judged as best . And the name of such game is World Championship.

thanks ,very nice coverage !!

A big thanks to Sergey Shipov for the commentary
A bigger thanks to Colin McGourty for translating the commentary!
A biggest thanks to Aronian and Kramnik for playing such an awesome match!

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▄▄▄▌▐██▌.▌ Destination: Trash can/End
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▀(O)▀▀▀▀▀▀▀(O)(O)▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀​▀▀(@)(@)▀▀▘

There seems to be a typo in the comment to White's 32nd move. The correct version should be: "The key variation is 32. Nxg6? Bd4+ 33. Kh1 Rff2 and Black wins too easily." Instead, the move 33...Rf3 isn't as immediate.

Overall, excellent commentary and translation!

Just to add my thanks for an excellent lucid commentary. As a weak player it's a rare privilege to feel so involved when going through a top game (nice web player too). Thanks to all concerned!!

I think Ivanchuck has the ability to beat both Aronian and Carlsen when he is in best form!!

Excellent analysis, GM Shipov!