22 Apr 2012



This Berlin Wall variation of the Ruy Lopez, [or Spanish Game as it is now called,] has a tendency to become queenless early on. In this particular game as early as move 8.

Aronian didn't show any discomfort or even surprise at the opening and followed the main line.
By move 18 we are left with opposite coloured Bishops, which invariably leads to a draw.
As does the symmetrical pawn formation that is now evident. So jockeying for position and tiny steps forward from both sides, trying to get a foot in the door and a small advantage.

The feel of a draw persisted until White provided a glimmer of hope for a rekindling of the embers by playing 22.a4, to be followed by a5 on the next move and then the rather nice 24.Nb5. This happened right after Kramnik had offered a draw, which Aronian declined. Kramnik's move 19...Nf5 raised a few eyebrows. He played this very quickly and it isn't deemed the best choice. Don't know why he was in such a hurry to draw, as it would have meant playing a rapid as per Zurich rules. Anyways, the game trundled on. Probably to avoid just that and nothing much happened, not even after a4-a5-Nb5.

In the unlikely event of anybody being interested:
You can play the moves by clicking the arrows below the board.
The black dot will give you AUTOPLAY
Clicking the moves in the list on the right also works.
Red moves are the actual moves that were played [in chess parlance that is called TEXT].
Green moves are possible variations and leading off those are the brown moves.

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