Kramnik shows who’s the Vladdy, Adams misses a win
After Wesley So’s terrible blunder in round one, Vugar Gashimov memorial 2017 round 4 saw two more games that might be legitimate candidates for Chessentials’ Featured Sundays.
The main story of the day is surely the game between Vladimir Kramnik and Pentala Harikrishna.
Few remember that Vladimir Kramnik was a fearless attacker b efore he became World’s greatest expert on the boring 1 Nf3, 1 c4 and Catalan systems.
In the 90s he didn’t hesitate to sacrifice a rook even against the greatest ever, and today he reminded us of his youth by sacrificing the full house.
The sacrifice, which was not fully correct, posed great practical problems for the Indian player, who played uncertainly and went on to lose rather quickly and without resistance.
To be honest, he didn’t commit any serious blunder, but was rather outplayed. But still, I have a hunch that he still might wonder what just happened there.
On the other hand, I am pretty certain that Michael Adams will be kicking his head against the wall after today’s game.
Because after playing brilliantly and sacrificing a pawn (nobody does this positional pawn sacrifices like Mickey), he came close to reaping the rewards of his instructive play.
However, at the critical moment, he missed the problem-like solution on a theme of domination that would have left his opponent completely paralyzed:
Naturally, it is hard to criticize Mickey for missing this sequence, but I think that it is not impossible to calculate that for a player of 2700+ standard.
Back to the Vlad the Impaler. We will now take a look at another brilliant game he is going to add to his impressive chess biography.