Instructive draw favourites

In the third round Anand-Kramnik was on the list, the first of two meetings between the top favourites to win the tournament. When I say “Petroff” you might think “boring draw”. Yes, it was a draw, but of the fascinating and quite instructive kind. The players played a theoretical rook ending till and including the pawn ending where White was stalemated! We have images from the game and the press conference afterwards in a new video by Macauley.

The players are trying to squeeze water out of stone in some of the current opening variations and I think this is an accurate description of Anand’s 16.Qa4 and especially the line he went for with 19.Bb5. This time it backfired and the game, perhaps together with Leko-Gelfand, can by added to the to be written Winning with the Petroff. However, the rook ending was drawn and how exactly was instructively shown by the players. The fans had the feeling they were reading a Dvoretsky manual. Here’s Macauley’s video, which includes the press conference and commentary by Kramnik’s second Loek van Wely:

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Morozevich recovered from his loss to Kramnik by beating Svidler in a rare Scotch line that started with 7.Bc4. Black seemed to go for the refutation with some aggressive moves but soon it turned out only White profited from them. With a bishop pair and a pawn centre White only had to defend against Black’s desperate attack to clinch the point.

Grischuk played a good game with White against Aronian, and got a nice attacking position. However, he had spent much time and got into serious timetrouble. When Aronian made a big mistake the Russian did not have time left to find the win and had to go for a perpetual.

Leko did manage to get an advantage against Gelfand’s Petroff, but the Israeli defended well and after 42.cxd3? it was Black’s turn to to even try to win this game. Probably nobody is sure at the moment if this queen ending was winning for Black.

Standings:

Playing schedule:

Second half