Heading into the first rest day of the grueling tournament after three rounds the contestants have a lot to look forward to building on the developments of the first three rounds.
Kramnik scored an emphatic win in round three against Levon Aronian deploying the Berlin Defense- one that he spent a lot of time working on to beat Kasparov using it as a primary weapon at their World Championship Match in 2000. The Berlin Defense has since been receiving a lot of attention playing Black in the Spanish Opening at highest levels. The move order of the Berlin Defense arise out of the continuation- 1.e4 e5, 2.Nf3 Nc6, 3.Bb5 Nf6 and so on. While trying to put pressure on Black’s center with 3. Bb5 White now has to deal with an attack on his own center that’ll bring about some dynamic combinations. Aronian doesn’t normally deploy the King’s Pawn game and it was hard to imagine him taking this step and effectively inviting Kramnik to play the Berlin Defense. May be Levon had done some homework and surely had some preparations in store for Kramnik but when you are stunned at move #7 you know you are at the receiving end of this bargain. Heres a look at their game with instructive analysis by GM Bojkov.
Levon resigns faced with a mating combination.
This was a follow up to Kramnik’s brilliant win in round one v Sasha Grischuk. A very instructive game with Kramnik playing White and deploying the Queen’s pawn opening.
Kramnik has a lot of experience playing candidates matches and World Championship Matches and knows how to keep his ground. Its just the start and lot of chess to be played against the finest. But if Kramnik can keep his form and keep digging into his wealth of knowledge and years of preparations to come up with surprises for his opponents then he has a serious shot at the crown!
Among our American talent Wesley So has run into a rough start in the first three rounds- losing his first two games and drawing the third. Welsey will have to draw all of his resources to bounce back from here. We’ll take a look at his game against Fabiano Caruana in the first round where Wesley really didn’t put up much resistance to Fabi’s Catalan Opening.
Here’s the crossable after three rounds!
