Ilya Odessky’s report included a transcript of Kramnik’s demonstration of his game with Anand, given as proof of the folly of considering draws necessarily boring.

Sadly links to the video and report at the official website no longer work. Originally posted here.  

A dull, uninteresting game – many thought. This transcript won’t convey even a tenth of the mastery, the cold, professorly charm, with which Kramnik carried out his commentary. But perhaps it will get across the main point to the reader.

Chess isn’t something squalid . Chess is very cool.

The demonstration IS great, though it just boils down to Kramnik saying that Anand’s novelty was very good, and that it means another line promises nothing for white. An example (there’d been some discussion of whether 18. d6 would have given white any chances):

18.Bc7. I couldn’t find anything more ingenious. You want to include 18.h3, but in reply, besides 18…Bxf3, you have to consider 18…exd5!?, and if 19.hxg4, then 19…dxe4, and if 19.exd5, then 19…Rxd5, and black’s completely fine.

You can play 18.d6, but that takes all the dynamism out of the position. There might follow 19…Bxf3 19.Bxf3, then 19…Nd4, or 19…Ne5, or even 19…Qa6. More likely than not I’ll simply lose the pawn.

I’ve had enough experience playing these types of position and came to the conclusion that the move d5-d6 is more often than not bad. If possible you have to keep the pawn on d5 till the end.

Originally posted here:

There’s also a new Chesspro report, by Maria Fominykh and Vladimir Barski.

One curious fact is that apparently there’s a special rule on draws – a draw can only be agreed when the arbiters accept it. In the Leko-Ivanchuk game Ivanchuk offered a draw and Leko wanted to accept as he was short on time. After 10 (!) minutes the arbiters accepted the time argument (despite the playable position). Ivanchuk said they might as well introduce Sofia Rules, though players would still draw if they wanted to. The best Ivanchuk moment though was that apparently he hadn’t realised the tournament was moving venue after today and asked journalists if the new location was far away… even though he won the tournament there last year!

There’s an almost full transcript of Kramnik’s demonstration of his game with Svidler (well worth a Google translate). After the Ponomariov-Aronian game apparently Ponomariov said that Tal, no doubt, would sacrifice the knight and keep attacking without thinking about it, ignoring the material losses. But in the game he decided not to play in Tal’s style as he was worried by the prospect of playing the ending a piece down.