Kramnik manages to hold Kasparov

LONDON, OCTOBER 16: World No 3 Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik of Russia lost precious time on the clock for arriving late for the fifth roun...

LONDON, OCTOBER 16: World No 3 Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik of Russia lost precious time on the clock for arriving late for the fifth round game of the World Chess Championship, but still extracted a draw against defending champion Garry Kasparov, here on Sunday.

Playing white, Kasparov prefered English Opening signalling that he was yet to find antidote to the Berlin Defence in the Ruy Lopez, and the game quickly headed to a drawish ending.

Kasparov, who is defending his unparalled title after a gap of five years, struggled to find opening in Kramnik’s defence and having lost faith in his position offered a draw after 24th move which the challenger gladly accepted.Kramnik now leads the 16-game match-up 3-2.

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After a sedate English Opening, Kasparov opted to castle on the seventh move in the hope of letting Kramnik open his plans.

Kramnik, who arrived a few minutes late for the game with arbiter Andre Filipowicz starting the clocks in the player’s absence, played tactfully and reached a familiar position.

Kasparov gave up his bishop for knight, but in return purchased some pressure on the Queenside, particularly the open c-file.

The champion, however, earned some respite with a pawn kill on the 14th move that increased pressure on the light squares and along the a-file.

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Facing a renewed attack from white, Kramnik eventually fell 20 minutes behind on the clock.

Kramnik flirted with the idea of exchanging queens but Kasparov had other plans in mind. Kasparov took a black pawn with his queen forcing Kramnik to retaliate with similar move using knight.

This helped Kasparov build good pressure on the long diagonal a step from launching a major siege of black’s Queenside pawns.

Kasparov moved his knight to c4 and Kramnik responded with e6 a clever move designed to challenge the white knight. The game moved into interesting stage as Kasparov still had 20 minutes in hand over Kramnik and put in all his thoughts to try to upstage the challenger.