Candidates Matches 3rd - 27th May 2011

[LozCooper]

sure but I'm not optimistic of a long struggle right now.

After Grischuk played Qa5 I agree that there's less chance of a long struggle

[Ben Purton]

I like Qe4 here for kramnik

[Jonathan Rogers]

Thx to everyone for not laughing at my Gelfand v kamsky assessment. Actually I hadn't realised that Black was at least temporarily a pawn up at move 17!

[LozCooper]

Thx to everyone for not laughing at my Gelfand v kamsky assessment. Actually I hadn't realised that Black was at least temporarily a pawn up at move 17!

To be fair I was expecting white to be pressing for some time and was surprised to see it had finished so early.

[Jonathan Rogers]

not that I am expecting anything other than a draw in Kramnik v Grischuk, but who is it who is nominally better? Could easily be Black, I am thinking.

[LozCooper]

not that I am expecting anything other than a draw in Kramnik v Grischuk, but who is it who is nominally better? Could easily be Black, I am thinking.

It depends if black has a good answer to 17 Ne4 as Qb4 allows Nxf6+ although that may not be the end of the world.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I guess it's clearer now that it must be Black who is pressing. (If so) where has White gone wrong?

[LozCooper]

I guess it's clearer now that it must be Black who is pressing. (If so) where has White gone wrong?

Maybe Nxf6+ instead of Qa7 although I think black was active enough to not be in any real danger.

[Jonathan Rogers]

trying to work all this out but 26...c3 looks like a blunder to me - why not 26...f5 ?

[LozCooper]

trying to work all this out but 26...c3 looks like a blunder to me - why not 26...f5 ?

I suspect something like Rb1 forcing the queen off the long diagonal and then Qe5+ looks very dangerous

[LozCooper]

trying to work all this out but 26...c3 looks like a blunder to me - why not 26...f5 ?

I suspect something like Rb1 forcing the queen off the long diagonal and then Qe5+ looks very dangerous

Having fun looking at 32 Nf6 Qg2+ 33 Kxf2 Bxf6+ should be some interesting chess up to move 40 looking at grischuk's clock

[Jonathan Rogers]

me too. Then (after Bxf6+) a rook exchange on g8, followed by Qg3 seems to win - White wins the exchange and Black cannot force immediate promotion of his c-pawn. So it seems to me that Kramnik could have done this.

[LozCooper]

Kramnik-Grischuk has ended with perpetual after 44 moves so both matches are level at 2-2 with no decisive games yet. Barring draws in armageddon games tomorrow we are hopefully guaranteed some decisive games tomorrow.

[Mick Norris]

Rapid tie breaks under way

http://kazan2011.fide.com/live-games.html

http://video.russiachess.org/view/292

[Phil Neatherway]

Gelfand looks like he's grovelling and Kramnik is a pawn down.