Kramnik's latest game

[Mats Winther]

From Chessbase.com. It's a remarkable game. I'm amazed that it works. Perhaps one should sacrifice the exchange more often.

[Event "41st GM"] [Site "Dortmund GER"] [Date "2013.08.01"] [Round "6.5"] [White "Kramnik, Vladimir"] [Black "Fridman, Daniel"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A13"] [WhiteElo "2784"] [BlackElo "2629"] [Annotator "Ramirez Alvarez,Alejandro"] [PlyCount "67"] [EventDate "2013.07.26"] {Kramnik played a very impressive game today. He sacrificed an exchange and a pawn to obtain what looked like some questionable compensation. But the more one delves into the position the more obvious it becomes that Black was quickly running out of useful moves and that he was powerless to stop White's slow but powerful attack. Black tried running to the queenside with his king, but it was to no avail. A great combination starting with 29.Nd5! finished Black off.} 1. c4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. b3 Nf6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O c5 7. Bb2 Nc6 8. e3 b6 9. Nc3 dxc4 10. bxc4 Qd3 11. Ne1 Qd7 12. Qe2 Bb7 13. f4 Rfd8 14. Rd1 Nb4 15. d3 Bxg2 16. Nxg2 a6 17. a3 Nc6 18. g4 Ne8 19. f5 Nd6 20. f6 Bxf6 21. Rxf6 gxf6 22. Nf4 Ne5 23. Nh5 Qe7 24. Rf1 Nd7 25. Qg2 h6 26. h4 Kf8 27. Qg3 Ke8 28. Qf4 Qf8 29. Nd5 exd5 30. Bxf6 Ne5 31. Qxe5+ Kd7 32. Bg7 Re8 33. Nf6+ Kc7 34. Qa1 1-0

[Ray Sayers]

Nice!

Kramnik isn't known as 'Mr. Interesting Chess', yet Petrosian also was very fond of sacrificing the exchange!

[Jonathan Bryant]

Nice!

Kramnik isn't known as 'Mr. Interesting Chess' ....

depends who you ask

Was it Rowson who said something along the lines of the difference between the good player and the average one being most clearly shown in willingness to sacrifice the exchange?

[Ray Sayers]

Oh, don't get me wrong. In my opinion, Kramnik is a magnificent player.

I just think many people think his play still is (was!) dull. He has reinvented himself very well. But his games and notes are very deep and impressive.

[Geoff Chandler]

A bog standard exchange sac to open up a King.
It's the kind of move you play without lookng at all the ramifications. It's messy so you just play it.
Is it because this kind of punt is not Kramniks normal style that makes it so interesting.
Nice touch with Qa1 though.

How come everytime someone somewhere sacs the exchange Perosian's name pops up.

Are they saying it because they know something or are they just saying what someone else has said in the past?

This needed investigating.

I know the game in question was Rook takes Bishop but the exchage sac Rook takes Knight
is the one that is usually glued to Petrosian.

So I fired up the old DB looking for games played where Rook x Knight was played and the player tossing in the Rook won.

Petrosian as White has 15 Wins
Petrosian as Black has 9 wins

So Petrosian has played RxN winning 24 times. Good.

Pick a GM. This is an English forum so pick an English GM.....Mark Hebden

Mark as White has 27 wins
Mark as Black has 22 wins.

So Mark has played RxN winning 49 times. Even better. (And not doubt Mark will be adding to that total.)

(I even beat Petrosian though ½ of mind are totally unsound.)

[Andrew Bak]

A bog standard exchange sac to open up a King.
It's the kind of move you play without lookng at all the ramifications. It's messy so you just play it.
Is it because this kind of punt is not Kramniks normal style that makes it so interesting.
Nice touch with Qa1 though.

How come everytime someone somewhere sacs the exchange Perosian's name pops up.

Are they saying it because they know something or are they just saying what someone else has said in the past?

This needed investigating.

I know the game in question was Rook takes Bishop but the exchage sac Rook takes Knight
is the one that is usually glued to Petrosian.

So I fired up the old DB looking for games played where Rook x Knight was played and the player tossing in the Rook won.

Petrosian as White has 15 Wins
Petrosian as Black has 9 wins

So Petrosian has played RxN winning 24 times. Good.

Pick a GM. This is an English forum so pick an English GM.....Mark Hebden

Mark as White has 27 wins
Mark as Black has 22 wins.

So Mark has played RxN winning 49 times. Even better. (And not doubt Mark will be adding to that total.)

(I even beat Petrosian though ½ of mind are totally unsound.)

I've seen a video series on Petrosian's exchange sacrifices and a lot of them were to get out of bad positions and achieve a draw through activity or some blockading device.

The exchange sacrifice that Kramnik did cannot really be related to Petrosian's style of play - Kramnik's sacrifice was one based on intuition to play for an attack, not really for positional considerations.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Andrew.

"The exchange sacrifice that Kramnik did cannot really be related to Petrosian's style of play..."

I know, that is what I'm going on about. Someone sacs the Ox and up pops Petrosian.

"I've seen a video series on Petrosian's exchange sacrifices..."

What we need is Mark Hebden's exchange sac videos.

[Ray Sayers]

Your DB is inaccurate.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscol ... id=1013349

Is a selection of Petrosian's exchange sacs, containing 18 Black wins.

[Mats Winther]

The point is that Petrosian invented a completely new motif for the exchange sacrifice. It was a positional sacrifice that served the purpose of invading with the pieces on the diagonals that were weakened by the sacrifice.

Petrosian's style is still a mystery. That's why his name still pops up. There were many GM's that were equally strong, but who are never mentioned, because there was nothing special about them. But Petrosian won games against super-GMs in a very peculiar way. He invented a new positional method that is still not fully understood. It has something to do with slowly acquiring the control over important squares and strangling the opponent.
/Mats

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Ray.

First two I looked at in the that link where RxB ex-sacs. I was showing doing RxN. I did not look at any further.
(MY DB is out of date, I stopped adding to it in 2010.)

My point being Kramnik's Rxf6 was not a classical Petrosian type ex-sac, (it's a coffee house sac)
Tal would have had that Bishop off the board before his opponent had pressed his clock.

There must be a new book of Kramniks games coming out, his publisher's have
told him to sac something every now then.
Next month he will play a greek gift Bxh7+ sac and the world will hold it's breath in amazement.

Anytime someone sacs an exchange for what ever reason then it's tagged shades of Petrosian.

Why not shades of Philidor?

François André Philidor - NN. 1749
[FEN "r4rk1/1p1n4/2p1q1pp/1p1nP3/3pNPP1/1P1B3P/P2Q4/4RRK1 w - - 0 23"] 23. Ng3 Ne3 24. Rxe3 dxe3 25. Qxe3 Rxa2 26. Re1 Qxb3 27. Qe4 Qe6 28. f5 gxf5 29.gxf5 Qd5 30. Qxd5+ cxd5 31. Bxb5 Nb6 32. f6 Rb2 33. Bd3 Kf7 34. Bf5 Nc4 35. Nh5 Rg8+ 36. Bg4 Nd2 37. e6+ Kg6 38. f7 Rf8 39. Nf4+ Kg7 40. Bh5 1-0

Hi Mats.

Correct, though I would not say Petrosian invented it (see above) , I'd say he understood it more.

I've been told Petrosian is a beautiful chess engima when it comes to computers.
When they first started using these things to look at famous players games Petrosian scored low.
As the computers got better so Petrosian's score got higher.
Maybe Rybka 32 will sus him out.

As I said I've been told this though I see no reason to disbelieve this. It does however make sense.

Tried to come to grips with Petrosian (him and Korchnoi are impossible (for me) to tag.)
Read a few books. I Think Clarke's book comes the closest to explaning Petrosian to a layman.
Pity Reinfeld passed away just as Petrosian was becoming World Champion.
Reinfeld imho did a good de-cloaking job on Nimzovitch in Hypermodern Chess.

[Carl Hibbard]

From Chessbase.com. It's a remarkable game. I'm amazed that it works. Perhaps one should sacrifice the exchange more often.

Please try to 'quote' the original URL we should always try to do this when copying an article from somewhere else

It could be this one?
http://chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/Pos ... 30813.aspx