27.12.2005 Seventh round summary

Konstantin Sakaev

Nobody objected a draw in the game Volkov-Svidler, thus the game ended rather quickly. The same could be said about the encounter between Khalifman and Motylev. Just a little more entertaining was the game Rublevsky-Kramnik, where Black needed to make a couple of precise moves after the opening, which was not challenging for such a great Petroff expert as Vladimir Kramnik.

The game Bareev-Morozevich also ended quickly with the only difference being that the game ended decisively. Alexandet Morozevich made a hara-kiri, losing in three moves - 10...Nc6?, 11...e5? and 12...Nd5? Vadim Zvjaginsev continued having fun in the opening: he repeated 1.e4 c5 2.Na3?, but Alexey Dreev's surprisingly hesitating play allowed Vadim to gain an advantage... The structure was analagous to Zvjaginsev-Bareev from the 5th round, the only difference being that Vadim managed to exchange his knight to a dark-squared and not a light-squared bishop, which is also not bad. However, just like in that game, he did not manage to convert the advantage. Evgeny Tomashevsky broke under pressure - having lost a pawn early in the game, the youngest participant of the Superfinal allowed Dmitry Jakovenko to climb to +3. I am looking forward to the most exciting struggle for the title!

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