The last round of Dortmund could easily have been an anticlimactic affair, but the players continued their combative to the end, with two decisive games, and near last round miss by Le Quang who drummed up serious winning chances against the leader Ponomariov. We bring the report with their analysis and closing ceremony pictures, and also ask for your help with the last one.

From Thursday July 15 to Sunday, July 25, 2010 the 38th edition annual Sparkassen Chess-Meeting is taking place in Dortmund, Germany. It is a six-player round robin, in which each player has to play two games against each other, one with white and one with black pieces. Draw offers are not allowed – a game can only be declared a draw, by the arbiter, if there is no possible win for one side, or if a position is repeated three time. The winner of this tournament will be determined after ten rounds. Games start at 15:00h = 3 p.m. local time (CEST, = 17:00 Moscow, 14:00 p.m. London, 9:00 a.m. New York). All games will be broadcast by the official web site's "Live Games" page and on the Playchess.com server, with live audio commentary, in German, by Dennis Breder (July 15-18), Niclas Huschenbeth (19-21), Merijn van Delft (22, 24, 25) and Julian Zimmermann (July 23).

The last round of Dortmund was not without excitement, as two games ended up with decisive results, and Ponomariov came very close to losing his game against second-place Le Quang.

Vladimir Kramnik overcame Mamedyarov in their last-round encounter when they both followed the Kramnik-Ponomariov (Tal Memorial, 2009), a game Kramnik had won. Kramnik was the first to deviate by taking a pawn he had spurned in the aforementioned game, and Shak seemed ill-prepared for the defensive task he was obliged to go for. Vladimir improved his position as the Azerbaijan refused to enter the passive defense required, and resigned in a lost rook endgame. With this windfall, Kramnik achieved some damage control for his rating and finished on 50% as did his opponent.

Leko and Naiditsch played the same line the latter had played against Le Quang in the second round, and again came out of the opening with a bad position. No doubt something he will need to rethink. Leko came out of the middlegame with an extra pawn and edge, but by the time they were down to a knight endgame with White's two pans vs Black's one, the only was Naiditsch was going to share the bottom of the crosstable was by erring. The defense was not pleasant, and after fifteen moves trying to avoid the pitfalls thrown at him, he slipped and the Hungarian made no mistake and chalked up his only win in what had otherwise been a disastrous tournament for him.

Ponomariov's task would have seemed far simpler than it actually was. As White, playing his nearest rival, his task was to neutralize the game and safely draw it. By doing so he would be alone in first and secure what has been a near perfect tournament, one has has led almsot consistently since the very first round. His young Vietnamese opponent, however, had other plans as became clear, and seemed close to winning at one point.

Photos: Georgios Souleidis


From chessbase.com