Biel, Round 6
Hello again my chess comrades! My apologies for the slight lateness of the previous round's coverage - my body decided to shut down for sleep at a much earlier time than usual, so I have only my unconsciousness to blame. After an interregnum of peace, we got back into a round filled with violence!
The one game that retained a devotion to tranquility was Navara-Carlsen, where Carlsen brought out the Kramnik approved drawing weapon of the Semi Tarrasch. 12...Ba6 was a bit offbeat, but didn't fundamentally change the position, and continued along normal Semi-Tarrasch contours - White's passed d pawn was balanced out by Black's a pawn, and neither side had serious winning chances. The game liquidated down to a completely drawn rook ending, and they agreed to a draw just after the time control. Given Carlsen's fantastic play so far, I'm surprised he didn't play a more tense game - he never had any real chances to win, and part of that was due to his soporific opening choice.
The game Georgiadis-Mamedyarov featured a Be2 Najdorf, and starred a very professional outplaying of the Swiss GM. Georgiadis never blundered, but Mamedyarov simply displayed superior understanding of this common Najdorf structure. He established a chokehold on the kingside, and prepared a straightforward kingside assault. Mamedyarov drifted a bit, however, shifting his knight from f5 to g7 a couple of times. Georgiadis had some brief chances to equalize or better - however, he chose to play things slowly with 29. a3, and Mamedyarov was able to re-establish control. He implanted his knight into d4, broke the kingside open with ...g4, and established a crushing position. Georgiadis resigned just before the time control - aside from Mamedyarov's brief middlegame drift, this was a perfect game from the Azeri genius. If you play the Najdorf, this game is mandatory to study - Mamedyarov dealt with this structure with absolute elan and care.
And finally, Svidler-Vachier-Lagrave featured a fantastic fighting effort between the two. The opening was a quixotic line of the English that has featured since the 1920s (the first game in my database is between a gentleman named Sandor Takacs beating...Spielmann and Rubinstein - not a bad debut for an opening!). White gives himself a hole on d4 and relinquishes the right to castle in exchange for fantastic piece play. This line features lots of pawn and piece sacrifices, and the consequences are still not terribly well worked out. Three cheers for the English! Svidler chose the relatively sedate 9. d3 (more dynamic are 9. d4 and the probably best 9. b4, throwing napalm into the campfire), but Peter developed thematic flank play with an early h4-h5. 13. h6, however, might have been an error, closing up play where White should be seeking to open things up. Svidler earned the two bishops and doubled MVLs f pawns, but the game featured more simplifications into an ending with a bishop and two rooks per side where MVLs marred pawn structure should have given White at least a symbolic advantage. However, Svidler chose the very strange 20. e5? - although White retrieved the investment, it turned the tables with White having the somewhat weak pawns. Svidler continued to misplay the ending, inflicting more weaknesses on his position...and almost intentionally allowing a mating attack! Svidler may have been in time trouble, but usually players in time trouble make the mistake of playing too solidly - here, Svidler set fire to everything! An unfortunate end to what was a fascinating game to a certain point.
With today's results, Mamedyarov went ahead into the lead with a fantastic 4.5/6 (+3!), a half point ahead of Carlsen. Svidler, Navara, and MVL are all tied for 3rd with 3/6, and Nico occupies the ground floor by himself with 0.5/6. Saturday finally features a rest day (Dortmund was very lazily paced, whereas Biel has started with six games in a row), and the players will prepare for Round 7 - that round will featured Georgiadis-Svidler, Mamedyarov-Navara, and Carlsen-MVL.