Download PGN of January '09 1 d4 d5 games

QGD 5. Bf4 [D37]

5. Bf4 0-0 6.e3 c5 7.dc5 Bc5 8.cd5 Nd5 9.Nd5 ed5:

Dobrov - Ziatdinov: Here a natural but not quite necessary move became the first step towards Black's disaster.

Bacrot - Sokolov: White played a common option but is it the most promising one? There are some doubts as Black equalised easily.

Jobava - Rustemov: Here White tried another king retreat, 11 Kf1:

Black reacted well but then he missed some tactics and lost control of the situation when everything was still in his hands.

Harikrishna - Charbonneau: Black came up with an interesting approach here and achieved good play. However, one inaccurate rook's retreat and he faced serious problems. The end of the game was a real drama - White blundered a bishop in a superior position but later Black spoiled an easy win by giving up his queen...

Kramnik - Short: Black tried a relatively rare option and failed to equalise. White did not hesitate to exchange his opponent's isolated pawn as it gave him a very strong attack...

Gurevich - Beliavsky: Black comfortably completed his development and achieved a slightly worse, but certainly defendable endgame. However, he missed the most comfortable way to equalise, after which his problems increased ... but then White was also not very precise...

Dautov - Lutz: Here White tried to pressurize in the endgame and almost succeeded, but in the end spoiled a win in a technical rook ending.

Leko - Kramnik: Right from the opening Vladimir Kramnik agreed to defend an ending with a pawn less. He seemed to have excellent drawing chances as all the pawns were on one flank and his opponent's extra one was doubled:

However, and rather surprisingly, he faced serious problems on the way to half a point and eventually failed. Later Peter Leko showed in his analysis that it was still drawn, but is it so much fun to defend such an ending? Black had another option at a critical point - to keep defending with a pair of bishops ... but still, there are some other possibilities in this opening variation.

Shulman - Ippolito: Here Black came up with an early d-pawn push but failed to completely solve the problems. In fact this game was a continuation of a theoretical argument between the same opponents. This time Yury Shulman came up with a clever novelty deep in the ending, on move 25. It helped him to secure a comfortable edge, which he converted rather easily.

Ruslan

If you have any questions, then please post a message at the 1 d4 d5 Forum, or subscribers can email me at ruslan@chesspublishing.com.