2014-03-18

Before the game Kramnik-Aronian - round 5 of Candidates 2014 (by GM Alexander Delchev)



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Despite losing in the first round undeservedly to Anand (have a look what black missed on move 13.), Aronian did not lose his confidence and the fighting spirit. Soon he came back with the entertaining combination against Mamedyarov. Yesterday he managed to beat a well performing up to this point Svidler. After that Aronian caught up with Kramnik on +1.

The game against Kramnik is going to decide who will be the main pursuer of Anand who is meeting Andrejkin. But today Aronian unfortunately has black pieces and in his last tree black games against Kramnik he had hard times. Kramnik proved to be a tough examinator playing tree different first moves. In his game from a Tal memorial he opted for 1.e4 and the modest line of the Scotch games occured. Nevertheless, soon Aronian had severe difficulties but somehow he managed to escape (Cramnik-Aronian, Tal Memorial 2012, round 4).

In the decisive match between Russian and Armenian team at the Istanbul Olympiad, Kramink opened with his main 1.d4. Soon in an only slightly worse position Aronian committed an error and was immediately punished in a highly instructive way - look (Kramnik-Aronian, Chess Olympiad 2012, round 6).

In his game from 2013 from London Candidates tournament Aronian again had a big problems after 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 but finally he passed the exam (Kramnik-Aronian, Candidates 2013). You can see that Kramnik avoids the theoretical dispute and enters in a modest side lines, which consists however a little venom. Nowadays this is the unpleasant treatment of the first move advantage. Especially when the opponent has a narrow repertoire. Then you can even guess what position would happen and to prepare some slight improvement. This will bring at least an advantage in time because the opponent has to solve the problems over the board.

So I expect today a line which will not be an unusual one but it will be deeply analysed by Kramnik and his team. Will Aronian pass the test? Lets see...

1.c4 ( 1.Nf3 )

Prediction on ChessBomb

Prediction of Svidler-Topalov game

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