Adams Leads in Dortmund After Three Rounds

After 3 rounds, Michael Adams tops the standings with 2.5 points at the 41st Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund, Germany. The English grandmaster won in rounds 2 and 3, both times in a Berlin Ending: first with White against Andreikin, and then with Black against Fabiano Caruana. Vladimir Kramnik and Georg Meier are tied for second place with 2/3.

It was a good weekend for Mickey Adams, who won both his games in Dortmund to take the sole lead. On Saturday he beat Dmitry Andreikin in "Carlsen style", from an ending that looked extremely drawish. The Englishman just improved his position more and more, started pushing his g-pawn and then it was suddenly winning after Andreikin's 58...Bc2?. Black can't take the pawn on g6 because of 60...Bxg6 61.Rf6+.

The next day, Adams played the same opening with the black pieces and duly won again. This time he was helped by his opponent Fabiano Caruana, who was a bit too optimistic with his move 21.f6? where 21.Bg5 Rg2+ 22.Kf4 Rf2+ 23.Kg3 was probably the most White could get. Can you find how Adams refuted the mistake?

Here's the full game:

Wang Hao won a good game in the second round against Daniel Fridman, whose Petroff was solid, but not solid enough. White could just push his pawns on the kingside and create an attack, and when the black king walked away, h7 became too weak.

The other seven games in rounds 2-3 ended in draws (and to be honest, they were not too exciting). What to think of this one?

The night before, Andreikin was one of the 80,675 fans in the Signal-Iduna-Park football stadium where he saw Borussia Dortmund take revenge for the lost Champion's League final, beating Bayern Munich 4-2. For the Russian grandmaster, who started his tournament with two losses, it was a good way to forget about chess for a while...

The Sparkassen Chess Meeting runs July 26th – 4 August in Dortmund. July 31st is a rest day.

Dortmund 2013 | Pairings & results

Dortmund 2013 | Round 3 standings

Official website; games via TWIC