Photo Cathy Rogers

 
The harshest criticism was levelled at defending Champion Kramnik by veteran Spanish journalist Leontxo Garcia for Vladimir Kramnik's decision to stop yesterday's game in a double-edged position. 

 Kramnik responded in the best possible way by winning the game of the day against Alexander Morozevich and bridled at questions querying his decision to make a draw in an unclear position in his first round game against Peter Svidler; "I am a World Champion - I am used to people writing [negative] things about me. If I play in a tournament, I want to win the tournament. I do the things that I think are right."

 Kramnik was more amiable when asked if he was always in control in his spectacular win over Morozevich. "In modern chess it is difficult to win keeping everything under control. I had a feeling that my sacrifice was good and I felt I was definitely better after 21.c7."

 
Morozevich praised Kramnik's sacrifice but was kicking himself for missing a chance to launch a counter-attack late in the game.

1090

Opening: Catalan

Top seed Viswanathan Anand kept pace with Kramnik by scoring with Black against Levon Aronian.

  1088
Anand used a novelty, 17...c5, which he had prepared with his second Peter Heine Nielsen only four days earlier and was very satisfied with his play. "...Be5 was a very important move, after which his bishops are [out of play]," Anand said.

 
Aronian, who fell behind on the clock early and never recovered  was left shaking his head at a game where he seemed to have no chance. "Vishy played very well and I think I played very badly," the Armenian GM said. "I surprised Vishy with 5.Bg5 - I don't normally play that way. I had many lines to look at and I think even if I had chosen the right line to prepare I would not have looked at 17...c5. I knew that my Nd5 sacrifice was not good enough but I didn't see anything else. Also I overlooked ...Qe6! - I thought he would have to defend the h pawn."

 
Anand shrugged off questions about his big game against Kramnik tomorrow. "Every day you get a strong player. If I didn't get Kramnik tomorrow I would have to play him some other time. I wasn't lying when I said that this was a very strong tournament where you should play from day to day and not get ahead of yourself."

 
Peter Svidler was more than a little annoyed at not joining the leaders, after failing to convert a safe extra pawn in Leko's favourite Marshall opening.

1092

"The Holy Grail eludes us again - the refutation of the Marshall doesn't exist," Svidler philosophised. "Qe2 is a rare move and Black can hold in a number of ways. I guess Peter missed 20.Ne4! when if he takes the pawn he loses the exchange. [If 20..Bxe4 21.fxe4 Rxe4 White plays 22.Bd1! IR] After that White is better in a number of ways. I was spoiled for choice and decided to find a forced win. However I missed that after 26.Qh3 the bishop on c7 is protected and Black can simply play 26...h5. Afetr that it should have been an easy draw, but in time trouble Peter gave me some chances."

 
Leko was relieved to have survived; "It is always unpleasant when you don't know how much your opponent hs prepared. I really wanted to play 17...Nf4!?, even though I knew he would have analysed this, but when we got to the position I found a good line for White. I was quite disappointed that ...Nf4 didn't work and then I blundered a quite simple thing [ 20.Ne4!]. After then the position looked bad for Black but it was not so easy to find something immediate - and it was clear that my opponent wanted to find something immediate!"

 
The quietest game of the day was Gelfand-Grischuk, which followed a blitz game the two had played in 2006 until Grischuk varied on move 10 with an old Romanishin line. "I needed to prevent his knight from coming to c3 but I couldn't achieve it," said Gelfand. "Then there were lots of tactical variations but they all led to a draw."

  1089

Gelfand also defended the first round draws, comparing chess with soccer. "In the Italian league with the best teams there are very few goals scored. The stronger the players the more resistant they are."

Grischuk added "In chess a draw is a probable result - it's a reality. With Sofia rules [no draw offers allowed] 99% of my games would be drawn anyway."