The Week in Chess

Alexander Grischuk beat Boris Gelfand with black in a fascinating Gruenfeld defence in the game of the second round of the Petrosian Memorial in Moscow. Grischuk came well prepared against Gelfand's Bf4 Gruenfeld and his preparation gave him an edge. Grischuk seemed to call Gelfand's play super-principled and Gelfand resisted strongly throughout eventually having to resign after 66 moves.

Vladimir Kramnik beat Ernesto Inarkiev (who was done no favours at all by the draw being given two blacks in a row at the start of the event) in a nice game Kramnik played a Qc2 Queen's Gambit to make himself a bit less predictable and got a nice initiative. Kramnik then turned his aim to a depleted kingside. Kramnik was always better and his attack very strong but there were some chances to resist a bit better than Inarkiev did.

Levon Aronian was under pressure almost throughout his game against Alexander Morozevich but missed a small chance at the end to turn the tables and press for a win himself but the game was instead quickly drawn.

Liren Ding didn't put a lot of pressure on Peter Leko with white. It may in fact be that Leko should have shown a bit more ambition himself but the game was drawn.

Some light notes in the PGN. I'm having trouble extracting much from the Russian press conferences and may just give game scores from now on as the World Championship approaches.

Round 2 Standings: 1 Grischuk 2pts 2 Kramnik 1.5pts 3 Ding Liren, Leko, Morozevich, Aronian 1pt 7 Gelfand 0.5pts 8 Inarkiev 0pts

Round 3 Pairings: Leko-Kramnik, Aronian-Liren Ding, Grischuk-Morozevich, Inarkiev-Gelfand.