Games 1st round + short interview Boris Gelfand

In the first round not much exciting happened here in Dortmund. Carlsen avoided Leko’s Marshall with 8.d4!?, a move which can be dangerous if the opponent doesn’t know his theory. Black’s 15…Nb5 was a novelty (though 16…Bf6 would have transposed back to two games Polgar-Nunn and Nijboer-Sokolov) and White had a very slight edge for a while, until it was Magnus who had to be careful because of his 26.Rd3?!.

Anand too was never really in danger against Kramnik; until 11.Qc2 they followed the recent game Cmilyte-Galliamova and just like in that game Black’s harmonic, solid set-up meant that White’s bishop pair was not a big deal. Gelfand-Alekseev started very exciting, partly because of the novelty 12.e4!?, and Black had to play some accurate moves to avoid losing his queen. That was exactly what Alekseev did and because of a major exchange (and no Sofia rule here) the two gentlemen decided not to play on. And so the only player who won was Mamedyarov, who beat the sensation of two years ago in a dusty old line but with modern positional means.

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