Dortmund Sparkassen 2003

Round two by Chriss Lass

Vishy Anand is in a good shape. That is what I wrote yesterday. I know. But young Teimour Radjabov was in excellent shape today. The 16 year old from Baku, Azerbaijan only needed 31 moves to defeat the former world chess champion Anand. Obviously the loss against Kramnik yesterday did not influence his fighting spirit. Good. This way we will maybe see some more queen-for-a-rook sacrifices from Radjabov. And today his sac even proved him right.

Replay Anand - Radjabov 0-1
Analysis by GM Boris Alterman and Jason Doss

Bologan was late a few minutes today and let world champion Kramnik wait for some minutes. Bologan then arrived on stage and played 18 moves in only a five minutes. He stood up from the chair, left the stage and gave Vladimir over 30 minutes to think about his prepared position. After a long thinking pause and some knight-knight-jump-around teasing by both players, they agreed to better stop this and draw after only three hours.

Replay Bologan - Kramnik 1/2

What about Leko? Why did he draw again? No folks, today its different. He tried to break through Najditch's defense for 45 moves. And in this game, a very stuck middlegame position appeared on the board after move 19. I asked two russian GMs to analyze and explain this position to me. Their answer? "Totally weird". Chess is so much fun sometimes.

Replay Leko - Naiditsch 1/2

Aside from the boards I gotta tell you that Dortmund is renovating its beautiful opera house. Thats why they switched the location to the theater this year. The theater stage is way smaller than in the opera. And so I expect the house will be overcrowded during the weekend. And hot. Temperature is rising here in Germany. Until Monday its getting hotter and hotter they say. (Let's all hope the air-conditioning system will survive this heat too.) But even it's a smaller location this year, it is still very nice to sit in the soft theater chairs and look down to the wooden stage and watch the elite play.

Click back tomorrow & CU online.