In round one, no less a player than Magnus Carlsen got tagged for a half point against a woman International Master rated almost 350 points lower rated than Magnus. (This Swiss Gambit has worked out well for Magnus, as he still hasn't faced anyone within 300 Elo of his own illustrious rating. Kramnik & Giri, amongst others, haven't had such an easy time of it.) Yesterday, Kramnik got nicked for a half-point, albeit against a member of the 2600 club, one Kacper Piorun. But today Kramnik almost gave up a full point to the 2596 rated Daniele Vocaturo.
Up through the first 20 moves or so, Kramnik appeared to have everything under control. But on move 21 Big Bad Vlad started transforming the pawn formation and by the time the queens came off on move 28, his position was looking bad, with one weak pawn after another.
Kramnik shed his queenside pawns for activity, but by the time control at move 40 he was down three pawns, although White was destined to lose at least one of them.
But as I like to repeat, ad infinitum ad naseum, KEEP FIGHTING! And as the commentators Peter Svidler and Alejandro Ramirez pointed out, all three resulted were possible around move 43, as White's king was running out of space, and could find himself checkmated if White got careless. And within a few moves, Vocaturo had allowed Kramnik to repeat the position and Kramnik got his draw.
This game would probably also make for a decent exercise in looking for "Trends, Turning Points and Emotional Shifts" as Alex Yermolinsky wrote about in his book The Road to Chess Improvement - at least three inflection points occurred in this one! The full game is below.
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