Somewhat Exaggerated

Zurich: Vladimir Kramnik, as well as the audience, has enjoyed the game

"The predictions on draw death of chess seem to be somewhat exaggerated." This is how Oleg Skvortsov, the organizer of the tournament, summarized Round 3 of Zurich Chess Challenge. He said that watching Caruana - Kramnik encounter which finished peacefully much like all other games in the first cycle. 

After the detailed analysis of the longest game of the round, the former world champion agreed to give us a brief commentary.    

"I enjoyed the game a lot, - Kramnik smiled. - Surely I played the opening too risky and got an uncomfortable position. It seemed to me that I found a very interesting resource with taking on e4 and then Ng6. The position is complex, but it seems that I grab initiative here. At some point I thought I was close to winning. ... We couldn't find anything considerable during the analysis though. Fabiano made a very interesting move 43.d6 - just brilliant I would say. At least from first sight.

43.d6! [It's not the only possibility though - CN] Rb6 44.Nf5 Bxf2 45.d7 Nxd7 46.Rxd7+ Ke6 47.Rh7 Kxf5 48.Rxh5+ Kg6 49.Rxa5 Rb4 [49...c3 50.Ra2] 50.Ra6 Bd4 51.Rc6 Bxb2 52.R6xc4 Rxc4 53.Rxc4 Kh5 1/2

"In any case I enjoyed the game: it was funny with lots of fascinating variations. I'm glad we have the rest day tomorrow."

The encounter between the world champion Vishy Anand and his challenger Boris Gelfand was also pretty tense. The Israeli player made a rare  9...h5 in Najdorf with 6.h3. We found four games with such position ChessBase database, all of them finished in White's favour.  

ANAND - GELFAND

Anand has just took d5-pawn, Gelfand missed 14...Bxh3! which could have changed the result of the game. For example, 15.Bf4 (15.Bxh3 would be followed by Bh2+ with winning the queen) 15...Bxg2 16.Kxg2 Bb8! and Black has no problems.

Gelfand played 14...Be6 after which Anand had a slight advantage with an extra pawn, he however didn't manage to convert it.

Anand, Viswanathan

2013.02.25

Gelfand, Boris

Zuerich SUI

1/2-1/2

Zuerich Chess Challenge (3.1)

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf65. Nc3 a6 6. h3 e6 7. g4 d5 8. exd5 Nxd59. Nde2 h5 10. g5 Bd6 11. Nxd5 exd512. Bg2 O-O 13. O-O Nc6 14. Qxd5 Be615. Qf3 Re8 16. Be3 Bc4 17. Rfe1 Nb418. Rac1 Be5 19. Nc3 Bxc3 20. bxc3 Bd521. Qxh5 Bxg2 22. Kxg2 Qd5 23. Kg1 Nc624. Red1 Qxa2 25. g6 fxg6 26. Qxg6 Qf727. Qxf7 Kxf7 28. Rb1 b5 29. c4 b4 30. c3bxc3 31. Rbc1 Red8 32. Rxd8 Rxd833. Rxc3 a5 34. Kf1 Ke6 35. Ke2 Rh836. Bb6 Rh4 37. Re3 Kf5 38. Ra3 Rxc439. Bxa5 Nxa5 40. Rxa5 Kf6 41. Ra6 Kf542. Kf3

Thus, Zurich Chess Challenge still has no leader. Tomorrow is the rest day.

Taken from: http://chess-news.ru/