The Week in Chess

Vladimir Kramnik won with the white pieces in the first game of the World Cup final in Tromso against Dmitry Andreikin. In a rather unusual Tartakower Queen's Gambit. Andreikin's lively play looked to come close to equalising but Kramnik found a way to powerfully keep up the pressure. Then Kramnik found an excellent sacrifice of a queen which gave him rook and bishop and a really dangerous passed pawn which combined with time trouble really put Andreikin under pressure. 33...Ne5 seems to have been a serious error (33...Nd6 was better). Then Andreikin's 40...Qd8 the final move before allowed Kramnik to sacrifice to get two rooks vs queen which however slowly looks close to winning for white if not just outright winning. 48...Kxg5 accelerated the loss (although Kramnik demonstrated nice wins following the alternative fxg5) and the game finished on move 63.

This final consists of four games but Kramnik started the match favourite but now must be overwhelmingly so. Game 2 Saturday 2pm BST, 3pm CET.