Draw, draw, draw in Dortmund

5 July 2009, 0.16 CET | By Peter Doggers  | Filed under: Reports | Tags:

The third round of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund saw three short draws in the games Carlsen-Kramnik, Naiditsch-Leko and Bacrot-Jakovenko. Carlsen already started repeating at move 15, but keeps his slim lead in the standings.

The Sparkassen Chess Meeting takes place July 2-12 in Dortmund, Germany. Carlsen (2772), Jakovenko (2760), Kramnik (2759), Leko (2756), Bacrot (2721) and Naiditsch (2697) play a double round-robin.

Round 3

The draw is part of the game. In a six-player tournament this means that, with just three boards, there will always be one or two rounds without much excitement. Saturday was one of those days.

Perhaps caught by surprise, in a rare line of the Nimzo-Indian, Carlsen decided to take no risks and went for a repetition of moves at a very early stage against Kramnik. Not long after that, Bacrot and Jakovenko also shook hands; a topical variation of the Berlin Ruy Lopez had yielded White no advantage.

Naiditsch-Leko was the game that came closest to a real fight. It started with the Panov Attack, a rare choice these days against the Caro-Kann. White’s c-pawn had a nice career, ending up on d7 in the early middlegame, but the fun was soon over and also in this game suddenly everything was swapped.

Thus far Dortmund has been somewhat disappointing, especially compared to e.g. Sofia and Bazna this year. Perhaps there are too many of the solid, quiet, positional type of players in one tournament this time? Let’s hope that they will prove us wrong by creating some fire on the boards in the next rounds.

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Sparkassen Chess Meeting (Dortmund) 2009 | Schedule & results

Round 1	02.07.2009	15.00 CET		Round 6	08.07.2009	15.00 CET
Leko	¬?-¬?	Kramnik		Kramnik	¬?-¬?	Leko
Carlsen	1-0	Jakovenko		Jakovenko	¬?-¬?	Carlsen
Naiditsch	¬?-¬?	Bacrot		Bacrot	¬?-¬?	Naiditsch
Round 2	03.07.2009	15.00 CET		Round 7	09.07.2009	15.00 CET
Kramnik	¬?-¬?	Bacrot		Bacrot	¬?-¬?	Kramnik
Jakovenko	1-0	Naiditsch		Naiditsch	¬?-¬?	Jakovenko
Leko	¬?-¬?	Carlsen		Carlsen	¬?-¬?	Leko
Round 3	04.07.2009	15.00 CET		Round 8	10.07.2009	15.00 CET
Carlsen	¬?-¬?	Kramnik		Kramnik	1-0	Carlsen
Naiditsch	¬?-¬?	Leko		Leko	¬?-¬?	Naiditsch
Bacrot	¬?-¬?	Jakovenko		Jakovenko	1-0	Bacrot
Round 4	05.07.2009	15.00 CET		Round 9	11.07.2009	15.00 CET
Naiditsch	0-1	Kramnik		Jakovenko	¬?-¬?	Kramnik
Bacrot	¬?-¬?	Carlsen		Bacrot	¬?-¬?	Leko
Jakovenko	¬?-¬?	Leko		Naiditsch	¬?-¬?	Carlsen
Round 5	06.07.2009	15.00 CET		Round 10	12.07.2009	13.00 CET
Kramnik	¬?-¬?	Jakovenko		Kramnik	1-0	Naiditsch
Leko	1-0	Bacrot		Carlsen	¬?-¬?	Bacrot
Carlsen	1-0	Naiditsch		Leko	¬?-¬?	Jakovenko

Sparkassen Chess Meeting (Dortmund) 2009 | Round 3 Standings

				1	2	3	4	5	6
1	Carlsen,M	2772	+106	*	½	½		1		2.0/3
2	Kramnik,V	2759	-9	½	*	½	½			1.5/3	2.50
3	Leko,P	2756	-13	½	½	*			½	1.5/3	2.25
4	Bacrot,E	2721	+17		½		*	½	½	1.5/3	2.00
5	Jakovenko,D	2760	-30	0			½	*	1	1.5/3	1.75
6	Naiditsch,A	2697	-71			½	½	0	*	1.0/3

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

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