Kramnik holding the upperhand

By Our Chess Correspondent

CHENNAI, OCT. 15. Challenger Vladimir Kramnik holds the upperhand in the fourth game and is in the process of outplaying Garry Kasparov to raise his lead in the Braingames world chess championship match in London on Saturday.

After 40 moves, Kramnik is going to be a piece ahead but will face technical difficulties in converting the advantage with plenty of minor pieces on the board and few pawns. After three games Kramnik leads title holder Kasparov 2-1 and 12 games excluding the ongoing game are to be played. If Kramnik wins game four he will go two up.

It is not often you see Kasparov altering his repertoire. He did not need to do it these days. But in game four, one game down, he dumped his favourite, the Grunfeld defence for a less dynamic and somewhat solid queen's gambit accepted variation as black.

To win in this line, white needs to play the sharp lines and Kramnik's reluctance for sharp combat in the opening so far saw him keep his quiet system which has not been as effective as a white player ought to have in a match. ``You can't fault himfor he is in the lead,'' said one chess lover in a chat show.

White's choice on the seventh move, a simple pawn capture allowed black to swap queens and land in a queenless middlegame with dead equality. Kramnik himself varied from three of his earlier games against Lautier and V. Anand in 1997 and against Karpov in 1998 on the 11th turn. From the theoretical point of view, white's 16th move was an improvement, rather an attempted improvement over the more natural looking Kf2 that his second E. Bareev preferred in Elista 1996 against Rublevsky.

Kramnik started to make a big impression by advancing his king side pawns for establishing a slight advantage. In the sharp phase, Kramnik's intrusion with the rook was more deadly than Kasparov's and the black side looked battered. After an exciting ending and time pressure, the second in a row, Kasparov missed one clear chance to escape on the 38th move but after 40 moves is in a poor position.

The challenger dominated this game which in the earlier stages looked like a draw.

The moves: GM V. Kramnik-GM G. Kasparov, match game four, queen's gambit accepted, D27: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 e6 4. e3 c5 5. Bxc4 a6 6. O-O Nf6 7. dxc5 Qxd1 8. Rxd1 Bxc5 9. Nbd2 Nbd7 10. Be2 b6 11. Nb3 Be7 12. Nfd4 Bb7 13. f3 O-O 14. e4 Rfc8 15. Be3 Kf8 16. Nd2 Ne5 17. N4b3 Rc6 18. Rac1 Rac8 19. Rxc6 Rxc6 20. g4 h6 21. h4 Bc8 22. g5 hxg5 23. hxg5 Nfd7 24. f4 Ng6 25. Nf3 Rc2 26. Bxa6 Bxa6 27. Rxd7 Rxb2 28. Ra7 Bb5 29. f5 exf5 30. exf5 Re2 31. Nfd4 Re1+ 32. Kf2 Rf1+ 33. Kg2 Nh4+ 34. Kh3 Rh1+ 35. Kg4 Be8 36. Bf2 Ng2 37. Ra8 Rf1 38. Kf3 Nh4+ 39. Ke2 Rh1 40. Nb5 Bxg5. Game in progress.

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