London Chess Classic Round 2 was not very exiting one. All the 5games ended in a draw.So Giri is the sole leader with 1½ and Topalov at the last of the table with ½.
Anish Giri(2784) the only winner of the 1st round and thus the leader of the points table was paired with the wildcard entry Michael Adams(2737).The game was a quick draw. “I wasn’t too happy – but then suddenly it was a draw” was Mickey Adams’succinct postgame comment.The game opened with a Classical Nimzo-Indian (4.Qc2).There was threefold repitation and at just move no 26,they agreed to a draw.
Veselin Topalov(2803) vs Alexander Grischuk(2747) was a Berlin Defence.12…Bd7 was the first unfamiliar move. Later 18.b3 by Topalov looked a little strange and Grischuk took the initiative with Black. However, it always looked on the cards that the game would be left with pawns only on one side of the board and the game petered out to a draw.
Levon Aronian(2788) vs Viswanathan Anand(2796) featured an offbeat line of the Nimzo – 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4 5.Bd2!? The first person played it was Alekhine in a simul which he lost because of a rediculius blunder. Grandmaster opinion in the VIP room indicated that White had an edge in the early middle game but that it evaporated quite quickly after the queens were exchanged. Once Black’s knight was established on e4 for the second time (on move 28), the repetition of moves was an odds-on bet.“I felt under pressure but I also didn’t see a clear way for him,” said Anand at post match conference.
Carlsen(2834) – Caruana(2787) was another Berlin.Carlsen vs Caruana is a great line-up, but a very quiet game as well—mostly because the Norwegian was “really playing a small ball approach” as he put it himself.He refered to 5.Re1 against the Berlin obviously, but he did keep a small plus.They exchanged most of their pieces and after 28th move they had only queen and a rook.White ended up with a passpawn on d6.But that was not enough to win.At move 42 with threefold repitation they agreed to a draw.Carlsen explained how important it is to get a queen to d4 in such positions, in what was quite an instructive post-mortem by him.
Hikaru Nakamura(2793) – Vachier-Lagrave(2773) was the last and best hope of a decisive result.Nakamura played a strange move to avoid Grunfeld Defense of Lagrave and it turned to Benoni with pawn on d6.Vachier-Lagrave didn’t mind playing a different structure as he had an extra tempo which would always provide counterplay.
At some stage engine shows Lagrave have around +1 advantage for some time.But he couldnot hold the position and at last even he had some trouble but finally managed to draw.On playing the most entertaining game of the day, Nakamura said: “I don’t know about entertaining today.
Today was not what I call entertaining from the position I had out of the opening. Maybe it was entertaining for the fans but I was not enjoying it at least.”