Cautious First Round at Dortmund 2008

Kramnik using Gruenfeld Indian defence for the first time

As anticipated in one of our Dortmund preview articles, the short 7-round event will call for careful play without excessive risks. The first round saw all games drawn before the time control, but there are couple of elements to note. For the first time in his rich career, Vladimir Kramnik opened with direct Gruenfeld Indian defence. He had a couple of transpositions earlier, notably in the games against Bareev and Portish, but only from specific structures of then-favorite Slav defence. It is unclear if he decided to expand his repertoire at this point, as it is hard to put this act into context of psychological preparation for his match against Viswanathan Anand, who is almost exclusively opening with 1. e4.

Possibly the most interesting game in the first round was Sozin Sicilian between Arkadij Naiditsch and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Black left his King in the center and started to press along g-file and a8-h1 diagonal. White had to do something about opponent's light-squared Bishop before he could push nasty f7-f5 and went for Knight sacrifice on d5. It didn't bring much of excitement though, as White couldn't find better compensation than perpetual attack on the Black Queen. Perhaps 22. Ba4!? might have prolonged the game.

Round 1 results:
Jan Gustafsson 2603 - Vladimir Kramnik 2788 ½ - ½
Arkadij Naiditsch 2624 - Ian Nepomniachtchi 2634 ½ - ½
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2752 - Peter Leko 2741 ½ - ½
Vassily Ivanchuk 2740 - Loek Van Wely 2677 ½ - ½

Round 2 pairings:
Vladimir Kramnik 2788 - Loek Van Wely 2677
Peter Leko 2741 - Vassily Ivanchuk 2740
Ian Nepomniachtchi 2634 - Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2752
Jan Gustafsson 2603 - Arkadij Naiditsch 2624