The final game of the Zuerich Chess Challenge match between Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik finished in an interesting draw in a Berlin Defence, which left the final score at 3-3. Aronian repeated 1.e4 which was one of his clear goals for the match ("I haven't played e4 seriously for such a long time. I think I learned a lot.) and after Kramnik repeated the Berlin Defence Aronian played the quiet 4.d3. Both players admitted to playing more freely than they would have had this not been a friendly match. Aronian thought himself lucky to have drawn the match as "I was in reality playing very adventurous moves where I shouldn't have." Today Aronian sacrificed a pawn with 19.a5 which led to very interesting complications. Kramnik's 28...Kf8 was bad as he overlooked 29.Ra4 but Aronian immediately blundered back with the terrible 30.c4? Kramnik's 33.e3 looked strong and winning but things turned out to be more difficult than that and the game ended in a draw. 33...Ne7 would have been far more difficult to meet. An interesting and enterprising match.

Zuerich Chess Challenge 2012 (6)

Mark Crowther (Sat Apr 28 18:57:00 2012)