CHESS #597

VLADIMIR KRAMNIK won Dortmund for an amazing ninth time. He overtook first-half leader Magnus Carlsen empathetically defeating him in the second half and sealed it with a last-round win against Arkady Naiditsch.

Kramnik played unusually aggressively, prosecuting mating attacks in his wins. One (against Naiditsch) was his first victory with the black pieces in over 3 years. The victor had a 2850 rating performance with +3, =7, for 6.5 points from 10 games. Leko, Carlsen and Jakovenko tied 2-4 with 5.5 each. Leko and Kramnik were undefeated. A high 77 per cent (22 games) were drawn with an unacceptable 13 draws via a handshake within 30 moves.

At San Sebastian, Hikaru Nakamura started with a blazing 5 points from his first six. Then he slowed with three draws. That allowed Ruslan Ponomariov to catch up with a late spurt. They tied on 6.5 points and Nakamura won the blitz playoff.

Top-seeded Peter Svidler netted third spot with 5.5. The shock and awe came from Anatoly Karpov landing in last place with just 1.5 points. The legend was rusty and under-prepared; he ruined several decent positions in time trouble. The official website incidentally offers comments in Euskera (as well as Espanol and Ingles), the ancient Basque language proscribed in Franco's era.

In the study, “Checkmate? The role of gender stereotypes in the ultimate intellectual sport”, Dr Ann Maas’ team from Padua University matched 42 male-female pairs, of roughly equal ratings, to play via the Internet. Where players were unaware of the opponent’s sex, females played as well as males. When the opponent’s gender was known, women showed a drastic performance drop while playing versus men. When women (falsely) believed they were playing against another woman, they performed as well as their male opponents. Additional findings: “women show lower chess-specific self-esteem and a weaker promotion focus, which are predictive of poorer chess performance”. I’ll leave it to the shrinks to work out the social implications but this is the first study that attempts to scientifically dissect female under-representation in a mindsport.

The diagram, WHITE TO MOVE, (Kramnik Vs Carlsen, Dortmund 2009) is the launch-pad for a savage attack with 26.Qh6+ Ke7 27.Qh4+ Kf8 28.Qh6+ Ke7 29. Nb5. Kramnik repeated moves to get closer to the time-control, not because he wanted a draw. Obviously 27.- Kxd6 28. Nb5+ but this may be the best option given that Rxe6 cannot otherwise be stopped. Play continued 29.--Qa5 30. b4 Nxb4 31. Rxe6+! fxe6 32. 32.Qxe6+ Kd8 33.Qf6+ Kc8 34.Qxf5+ Kd8 35.Qf6+ Kc8 36.axb4 1-0. The tactical motifs are individually simple – Nb5 forks and prevents Kc7, bishop block on Bd7 is met by either Be6 or Qf8. Putting it all together requires impressive calculation.