The former world champion excels

Chess
By Lubomir Kavalek
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, July 13, 2009; 10:09 AM

Kramnik Excels

Vladimir Kramnik has won one of the major events of the year — the Sparkassen six-grandmaster double round-robin tournament in Dortmund, Germany. The former world champion from Russia finished with 6½ points in 10 games, a full point ahead of Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia and Peter Leko of Hungary. Etienne Bacrot of France ended with 4 points, and Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany was last with 3 points.

Kramnik likes to play in Dortmund, where he has won nine times, including Sunday’s victory. He made his move to the top just three rounds before the end, defeating Carlsen in the Queen’s gambit declined. The Norwegian grandmaster, who was in the lead most of the time during the event, decided to work his way out of a slightly worse position by simplifying, and he almost succeeded. But Kramnik had enough pieces on the board to pose some problems and Carlsen blundered. Kramnik sealed his tournament victory with a last-round win over Naiditsch.

Here is the full article.