The Week in Chess

Vladimir Kramnik managed to beat Anton Korobov after five hours play in the only decisive game of the first day of the quarter-finals of the FIDE World Cup. Korobov was highly critical of his opening choice and "I was completely unprepared for the game, it was the wrong opening I think after move 15 I was nearly hopeless or immediately lost and it's a bad thing the torure last for five hours else I could just go home and prepare for my service with the white game. The position it was the wrong strategy at all, just to choose this with the isolated pawn he is very strong and he played very convincingly but then he gave me chances." Kramnik was happy to have won and with his early play but highly critical he didn't find an almost immediate win with 38...Qb4 and he even wondered if Korobov was close to a draw at one stage. "My play should be better." was his verdict.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave discussed a sharp Gruenfeld with Fabiano Caruana. Caruana just couldn't remember his analysis after 16.h3 whether he had to play 16...Bd7 or 16...Bc8 and spent far too much time on this. Vachier-Lagrave quickly won a pawn and although he had the feeling he should then be winning it was at the very least very hard in a known type of middle-game/ending for this opening. Caruana slowly equalised and drew the game.

Dmitry Andreikin played the Torre Attack against Peter Svidler's Gruenfeld to avoid the theory and although it looked fairly harmless Svidler had to take energetic action to make sure that he didn't end up with a passive position. Lively play ensued where it was Svidler with the only chances to win but he repeated as it probably was risky to try and play for more.

Evgeny Tomashevsky, possibly by design, took a quick draw with the white pieces against Gata Kamsky. His lengthy tie-break the day before made this a sensible option.