Saturday, October 18, 2008

Anand - Kramnik 2008 World Championship Game 4 : Draw !

Game 4 of the Anand-Kramnik 2008 World Championship ended in a draw.
GM_Anand (2783) - *GM_Kramnik (2772)
World Championship, Game 4, 18.10.2008

1.d4 It seems that Anand stay with his "new weapon" 1.d4 for this match. 1...Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Anand allow Kramnik to play the Queen Indian Defense 3...b6 which is Anand main chooise as black! 3...d5 Kramnik decided not to play the Queen Indian opening where Anand is among the world expert 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bf4 0–0 6.e3 Nbd7 7.a3 c5 8.cxd5 Nxd5 9.Nxd5 exd5 10.dxc5 Nxc5 11.Be5 Bf5 12.Be2 Bf6 13.Bxf6 Qxf6 14.Nd4 Ne6 15.Nxf5 Qxf5 16.0–0 Rfd8 17.Bg4 Qe5 18.Qb3 Nc5 19.Qb5 b6

I think white has a very slight advantage due to black isolated d pawn. White probably should double or triple his heavy piece at d file and pressure the d5 pawn with his bishop later.
One more strategy for white is he can try to exchange all his major piece ( rooks and queen) and with mobile pawns on both side , the bishop usualy triumph over knight)

20.Rfd1 Rd6 21.Rd4 a6 22.Qb4 h5

i can't understand this move. [ of course, i'm unrated and Kramnik is Former World Champion however i have "strong GM - Mr Fritz and Rybka" on my side! :) ] why not play the natural 22...Rad8, overprotect the vulnarable isolated d5 pawn ? 23.Bh3...this also is quite a weird move. Let's see...Anand probably want to maintain control over the h3 - c8 diaganol and...he probably think that he can always control the more potentiol h1-a8 diaganol after playing g3 later. Rad8 24.g3 g5 25.Rad1 g4 26.Bg2 Ne6

White blockade on d4 is not that strong and now after the d4-rook move, black can play ...d4 immedietly, exchanging the isolated d5 pawn and solve the problem!

27.R4d3 d4 28.exd4 Rxd4 = Game drawn


Bernard said...

move 22 ...h5

well, first the situation in the center:
Black must care about not losing the island pawn. Every exchange makes this pawn weaker, but white performed already all reasonable exchanges. On the other hand, white must avoid a possible advance-sacrifice of the island pown with following attack on the king, what happens quite often. Such a tension forces the major pieces to stay in front and behind the pawn. So, the pawn exchange will possibly lead to the exchange of the major pieces.

You are black, your opponent leads the tournament, you renounced to check the skills of your opponent in the queen indian opening because it could cost you one more point, your opponent made the position flat exchanging everything possible and you see already the final exchanges coming and leading to a final bishop against knight with no pawn chains and a well centralized knight, like to say absolutely equal.

In this case you can bring the two pawns forwards because soon your king will protect them. You can hope in a slightly more aggressive position on the king flank and you don't have anything to fear. On the other flank, you will keep your pawns on black squares and only the enemy's king could attack them, :)

After that and despite the optic, ...h5 looks even safer as keeping the pawn on h7, do you agree?

also unclassified and using Fritz :)

hairulov chessmaniacs said...

interesting evaluation...i think no engine can't evaluate position better then even average tournament player help by strong chess engine

hairulov chessmaniacs said...

" engine can..."