cro777: Daniil Dubov: "I was actually happy that I managed to outprepare him." 6…Bc5, in a Reversed Dragon (King's English Four Knights with 4.g3 d5), has of lately become the main line. Karjakin recently played this line twice: Nakamura vs Karjakin, 2017 and Nakamura vs Karjakin, 2017. Dubov remarked: "If Karjakin plays something twice it will surely happen a third time." Position after 11…Qd4
 click for larger view This position was well known to both players. Here, Dubov introduced a novelty: 12.Ba3 (Nakamura against Karjakin had opted for 12.Be3). Dubov admitted: "I don't think that this novelty leads to an advantage if he plays correctly, but at least Black needs to remember a lot of stuff." Karjakin initially reacted correctly (12...e3 and 14…Ne5). Dubov's idea 16.a4, 17.bxa6 and 18.a5 happened to be decisive. Position after 18.a5.
 click for larger view Dubov: "The last thing I remembered was that here Black needs to play 18 ... Rxa5, and then everything comes to an end with a forced draw." Karjakin, after the first long thought in the game (25 minutes), made a mistake and played 18…Ba7?! He said: "I knew that 18...Rxa5 is a draw, but over the board got confused and played 18...Ba7. I even repeated this line today, but it did not help." 19.Qc1! followed. "I thought this was clever. I only rememebered that the computer evaluation was better for me. From now on we played on our own", Dubov explained. |