Krmanik vs Van Wely : Round 2 Dortmund! Live !!!

The Dortmund 2nd round game tonight will features an interesting duel between Kramnik against his seconder – Loek Van Wely (photo right) who help him in last year Mexico World Championship. Both know each other game very well and it is interesting to see what opening will they choose.


I of course will follow it live on ICC . Hope that they will be now “prearrange” game and short draw.

Ok guys...i'm following the live game now. Surprisingly the game were broadcast "on time". Actually, starting from last year ( or year before?), the game live game move will be delay for 15 minutes to avoid "assistant" from outsider but today strangely as Joel Benjamin the ICC commentator tell, the game were display on time! probably they are " pleasant" technical problem occur.


Kramnik (2788) - Loek Van Wely (2677) [D30]
Dortmund 2008 (2), 29.06.2008

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.b3

what to say? Kramnik love to play "boring" chess! You won't see Kramnik played king side pawn storming, imbalance and counterattack game like Shirov or Kasparov love to play. However his style prove successful, just it is little bit boring ...for spectators like me..:( 5...Nbd7 6.Bb2 b6 7.Bd3 Bb7 8.0–0 Bd6 9.Nbd2 0–0 10.Ne5 Qe7 Fritz opening book suggest 10...c5 12.Qh3

a rather straight forward approach by Kramnik. The queen headed to black king side 12...h6 13.f4 Bb4 14. Ndf3 Ne4 15. Nxd7 Rxd7 16. Ne5 Rc7 17. Bxe4 dxe4 18. c5

wow...., is Van Wely black square bishop will be trapped !?...let me check with Fritz 18...bxc5 19. a3 Ba5 20. dxc5 Qxc5 21. b4 Qb5 ..eeemm not that easy...white can't play 22.bxa5 because the b2 bishop will lose also. But after looking back the whole game, i found that 18.c5 was brilliant because it force black dark square bishop to be "offside" on the queenside and can't return to his kingside for defensive duty!
18... b6xc5 19.a3 Ba5 20.dxc5 Qxc5 21.b4 Qb5 Black piece is rather "offside" on the queenside whereas white is concentrating on a dangerous kingside attack! 22.Qg3

22...Bb6?? i think this is the decisive mistake. Black doesn't have to move the bishop because if white play bxa5 then simply Qxb2. 22...f5! defending the 7th rank should be played and black will have no problem. 23.Nd7 g6 ? the second mistake but black is lost anyway. 23...f6 opening the 7th rank for the black rook to defend g7 is necessary.

24.Nf6+ Kf8 25.Be5 Rcc8 26.Qh4 h5 black king side is simply weak and there's no single piece to defend the king side!

27.Nh7+ Ke8 28.Bd6 Rc7 29.Rfd1 1–0 An excellent game by Kramnik. I amazed by how he force all black pieces to the queen side and remain there hopelessly!