Kramnik takes over at the top

By Arvind Aaron

DORTMUND, JULY 16. Four-time winner Vladimir Kramnik of Russia scored the day's impressive victory over veteran Robert Huebner of Germany to move into clear lead at the end of the eighth and penultimate round of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting here on Saturday.

India's Viswanathan Anand came up with a novelty on the 13th move but it was not sufficient to get any advantage against the Sicilian Sveshnikov of defending champion Peter Leko. They drew in 24 moves in a position full of life and a certain verdict on Leko's suggestion.

Since the defeat to Adams in the fourth round, 25-year-old Kramnik had made 3.5 points from four games. He leads the 10- player category 19 tournament with 5.5 points. He is best placed for a fifth title here. Anand and Leko are in second place with five points. Adams is a further half point behind.

Anand and Leko have comparatively easier opponents in the final round having to play Huebner and Junior6. Kramnik is black against FIDE World champion Alexander Khalifman. Leko's chances appear to be good as he has the advantage of playing white. Leko has not lost any game and Khalifman has not won any game so far.

Leko played the Sicilian Sveshnikov as black very well to draw with Anand in 24 moves. His position was slightly better at the end and the white king was stranded in the middle. Sensing danger in the tactical position that emerged, Leko proposed a draw and got it from Anand.

On his final position, Leko disagreed that he had the better position and said, ``it is very complicated and having 19 minutes to his 66 minutes made me offer the draw.''

Kramnik gave an early indication that he was in a mood to extract the full point from Huebner and he did it in style after 27 impressive moves. The pawn advance on the king rook file from a queen's gambit accepted was rarely tried. Kramnik sacrificed his centre pawn for a king-side attack and it helped his development.

Black's urge for tactics when not fully developed was punished in the rest of the game. Huebner called it quits when he was losing a rook.

Kramnik said he had come prepared and had a look at his aggressive 11th move. He termed black's 16th move a `mistake' and said in the postmortem they had a look at other alternatives and were not satisfied with black's position.

Against the computer colour doesn't matter. Former tournament winner, Piket, 31, showed that the spirit that comes from inside and a strategy to play the machine are the perfect catalysts for a victory. Piket's first victory was also the first time that a player with the black pieces won a game in this tournament. He pulled off one in a tournament dominated by white.

Facing the king pawn, Piket went for the Caro-Kann defence by transposition. Junior's fifth move looked shockingly human. It was aimed at blocking black from exchanging his bad light square bishop and locking the pawns on that square. Piket was shocked but he responded with an atypical fifth move. Gaining space on the queen side to breathe easy, Piket managed to lock the pawn structure on the king side and parked his king safely in the centre, which too was closed.

Black's pawn thrust on the queen side was aimed at the castled white structure. All his three major pieces and three minor pieces participating in the exercise, the computer was crushed. It was its second defeat in 34 moves. Junior's Shay Bushinsky threw in the towel as white was losing a sitting bishop.

``Humans try to stop ideas of their opponents, it simply did not know how to do that,'' said Piket, excited about his victory. ``This game was strategy, no tactics as you can obviously see,'' said Piket.

In the game that stayed in the balance for most of the session, Khalifman sacrificed a pawn in the French defence with black and made a draw with sharp play against Adams in 43 well fought moves. Adams took a perpetual check in the rook and minor pieces endgame.

``It was a reasonable game, instead of 25.Rc1 I could have gone 25.Ng5,'' said Adams about the improvement he could have made in his drawn encounter.

Bareev dominated the game all through only to gift the point in the sudden death time control to Akopian after six hours and 35 minutes, the longest game of the meet so far. It lasted 70 moves. It was Akopian's second victory in a row and takes him to 4.5 points. Although an exchange down, Akopian was rewarded for a courageous fightback.

lThe results (eighth round): Junior6 (Isr) lost to J. Piket (Ned); E. Bareev (Rus) lost to V. Akopian (Arm); M. Adams (Eng) drew with A. Khalifman (Rus); V. Kramnik (Rus) bt R. Huebner (Ger); V. Anand (Ind) drew with P. Leko (Hun).

The standings after eight rounds: 1 V. Kramnik 5.5/8; 2-3 V. Anand, P. Leko 5 each; 4-5 M. Adams, V. Akopian 4.5 each; 6 E. Bareev 3.5; 7-8 Junior6, A. Khalifman 3.5 each; 9 J. Piket 3; 10 R. Huebner 2.

The pairing for the ninth round: P. Leko v Junior6, R. Huebner v V. Anand, A. Khalifman v V. Kramnik, V. Akopian v M. Adams, J. Piket v E. Bareev.

The moves:

Junior6-GM J. Piket, round eight, Caro- Kann defence, B15: 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 d5 5.h3 a6 6.Bf4 Nf6 7.e5 Nfd7 8. Qd2 e6 9.Bg5 Qb6 10.O-O-O h6 11.Be3 Qc7 12.h4 b5 13.Bf4 Nb6 14.a3 N8d7 15.Kb1 a5 16.Na2 Qa7 17.g4 Bf8 18.c3 Ba6 19.Qe1 Nc4 20.Bd2 Be7 21.Nc1 Ndb6 22.h5 g5 23.Na2 Kd7 24.Bc1 Rhb8 25.Ka1 b4 26.Nd2 Nxd2 27.Bxd2 Bxf1 28.Rxf1 Nc4 29.Rb1 b3 30. Nc1 Bxa3 31.Qd1 Qb6 32.bxa3 b2+ 33.Ka2 bxc1=N+ 34.Qxc1 Qxb1+ 0-1.

GM V. Anand-GM P. Leko, round eight, Sicilian Sveshnikov, B33: 1. e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.c3 O-O 12.Nc2 Bg5 13.a3 Ne7 14.Ncb4 Be6 15.Qd3 f5 16.h4 Bh6 (16...fxe4 17.Qxe4 Bf5 18.Qe2 Nxd5 19.Nxd5 Bxh4 20.g3 (and Leko thought white had compensation.) 17.Rd1 fxe4 18.Qxe4 a5 19.Nxe7+ Qxe7 20.Nd5 Qa7 21.f3 Bf4 22.Bd3 Bf5 23.Qe2 e4 24.Bxb5 exf3 Draw.

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