White on top in Dortmund

Tournament Hall
Vladimir Kramnik created significant practical problems for Anish Giri in the queenless middlegame, a line that the former World Champion seems to like playing against the younger generation. After this victory, he now leads with an impressive 4½/5. Le Quang Liem chalked up his first victory as he broke through in the centre and obtained a better endgame against Ruslan Ponomariov.

The longest game of all was the struggle between Georg Meier and Hikaru Nakamura. Meier pressed on the queenside whereas Nakamura was looking for a kingside attack in his pet King's Indian Defence. The German ditched the exchange at one point to stem the attack, and a long series of bizzare toing-and-froing took place where at first the American was pressing, but eventually the tables turned. Indeed Nakamura found himself down on material for very little, but he put up stauch resistance. Time and creative trickery from Nakamura must both have combined to give Meier practical problems, but he managed to save the day.

A 150 moves of sheer fighting spirit.

Round 5 summary:

White Rating Result Black Rating Moves Openings details
Le Quang Liem 2715 1-0 Ruslan Ponomariov 2764 71 Queen's Gambit Declined
Georg Meier  2656 ½ -½ Hikaru Nakamura 2770 150 King's Indian Defence
Vladimir Kramnik 2781 1-0 Anish Giri 2701 44 Grünfeld Exchange

The standings after the fifth round:

Rank Name Country Rating Kw Kb Lw Lb Pw Pb Gw Gb Nw Nb Mw Mb Points
1 Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2781 * * ½ . 1 . 1 . . 1 . 1
2 Le Quang Liem VIE 2715  . ½ * 1 . . ½ ½  . . ½  3
3 Ruslan Ponomariov UKR 2764 . 0 . 0 * 1 . . 1 ½ . 2½ 
4 Anish Giri NED 2701 . 0 ½ . . 0 * * ½ . 1 . 2
5 Hikaru Nakamura   USA 2770 0 . . ½  0 . ½  * * . ½  1½ 
6 Georg Meier GER 2656 0 . ½  . . ½ . 0 ½ . * *

Schedule:

July 21st to 25th:  Rounds 1 to 5

July 26th: Rest day

July 27th to 30th: Rounds 6 to 9

July 31st: Round 10

The first nine rounds begin at 3pm local time (3pm Paris, 2pm London, 9am New York).

The final round will be two hours earlier.

The time limit is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 in 20, and finally 15 minutes for the remainder of the game. The players also receive an increment of 30 seconds per move.

Official site:  http://www.sparkassen-chess-meeting.de/2011 

Live games: http://schachtage.dokomserver.de/toma/live.htm 

The transmission is with a 30 minute delay in order to avoid any possibility of 'external influences affecting the players decisions'.

 


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