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Home » Chess News » Events » Sparkassen Chess-Meeting Dortmund 2010 » Mamedyarov win allows him to catch Ponomariov after 3 rounds

Sparkassen GM Dortmund (GER), 15-25 vii 2010											cat. XX (2731)
					1		2		3		4		5		6
1.	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2734	*	*	.	.	1	.	½	.	1	.	.	.	2½	3009
2.	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2761	.	.	*	*	½	.	1	.	.	.	1	.	2½	2972
3.	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2734	0	.	½	.	*	*	.	.	½	.	.	.	1	2636
4.	Naiditsch, Arkadij	g	GER	2684	½	.	0	.	.	.	*	*	.	.	½	.	1	2600
5.	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2790	0	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	*	*	½	.	1	2591
6.	Le Quang Liem	g	VIE	2681	.	.	0	.	.	.	½	.	½	.	*	*	1	2620

Round 3 (July 17, 2010)
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	- Le Quang Liem	1-0	53	D11	Slav Defence
Naiditsch, Arkadij	- Ponomariov, Ruslan	½-½	82	C67	Ruy Lopez Berlin
Kramnik, Vladimir	- Leko, Peter	½-½	47	E06	Catalan

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov joined Ruslan Ponomariov in the lead with 2.5/3 after another interesting days play at the Dortmund tournament. Mamedyarov defeated Le Quang Liem in a game where the latter seemed under a lot of pressure, especially as Mamedyarov could repeat the position at will. However it was only after the first time control that he blundered. Ponomariov equalised against Arkadij Naiditsch but his 34...b5 was probably a bit too ambitious and he had to save a R+B vs R ending to retain the lead. Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko had an interesting struggle where Leko had pressure for a pawn.

Mamedyarov had a position where he was in total control against Le Quang Liem for a long time before the following position arose.

I was a bit surprised that there was not a clear win for Mamedyarov before this. Here 48...Rc4 is the only move. Or at least it was much better than 48...Rg6 which lost quickly. One suspects that Le cracked after being under pressure for so long.

48... Rg6 49. Qf3 Rd8 50. Qf5

50. e7 Rd2 51. Qf5)

50... Qg4 51. Qxg4 Rxg4 52. e7 Ra8 53. Red1 1-0

Vladimir Kramnik won a pawn against Peter Leko but the latter had a lot of pressure on white's kingside. In the end it was Kramnik, here that bailed out.

39. Bxf6 gxf6 40. Qd5 Bd3

40... Rg4 was a way of playing on when Kramnik would probably take queens off and hold the game anyhow.

41. Qf7+ Kh8 42. Qf8+ Kh7 43. Qf7+ Kh8 44. Rc1 Bc2 45. Qf8+ Kh7 46. Qf7+ Kh8 47. Qf8+ 1/2-1/2

After a couple of days of struggling Arkadij Naiditsch finally found a position more to his liking. White got at least something against Ponomariov's Berlin Defence and after the latter drifted a bit (I didn't like 34...b5) he had to defend the ending Rook and Bishop against Rook. This he did successfully in 82 moves to keep a share of the lead.

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