The upcoming World Championship Chess Match against Viswanathan Anand is not Vladimir Kramnik’s first chess match in Germany. In July of 2000 Kramnik played another high profile match in Deutschland. This time his opponent was the highly touted computer program Deep Junior. Because his opponent was a computer, Kramnik used anti-computer strategy that would not work against someone like Anand. This does not take anything away from Kramnik’s achievement in the game below. His play was nothing short of brilliant.
Playing 2. e3, Kramnik is obviously playing a slightly inferior move to take the computer out of its opening book. Kramnik’s strategy is to eliminate any opening advantage the computer may have and then lock up the pawns to reduce the computer’s calculation advantage. Kramnik then will use the human advantage of being able to form a long term plan to set up a position that favors the human. Its amazing how coordinated Kramnik’s pieces become after 23. Bd1. His bishop, 2 rooks, queen and knight are all focused on Deep Junior’s king. In contrast, Deep Junior showed little understanding of what was happening when Kramnik played his 12, 15 and 18 move. Becuse of this lack of understanding the aspects of the advancing pawns in a closed position, Deep Junior’s pieces are caught in the wrong locations late in the game. After 25. e4 Kramnik unleashes his dark square bishop thus using all his pieces together in the same attack. The rest of the game Kramnik plays with the great accuracy that is needed to defeat a strong computer opponent.
[Event “SuperGM”]
[Site “Dortmund GER”]
[Date “2000.07.12”]
[EventDate “2000.07.07”]
[Round “5”]
[Result “1-0”]
[White “Vladimir Kramnik”]
[Black “Junior (Computer)”]
[ECO “D00”]
[WhiteElo “2770”]
[BlackElo “?”]
[PlyCount “65”]
1. d4 d5 2. e3 Nf6 3. Bd3 e6 4. f4 Be7 5. Nf3 c5 6. c3 O-O
7. Nbd2 Ng4 8. Qe2 c4 9. Bc2 f5 10. Rg1 Nc6 11. h3 Nf6 12. g4
Ne4 13. Qg2 g6 14. Qh2 Kh8 15. h4 Nxd2 16. Bxd2 fxg4 17. Ng5
Qe8 18. h5 gxh5 19. Rxg4 Rf6 20. Rh4 Rh6 21. O-O-O a5 22. Rh1
b5 23. Bd1 Ra7 24. Bxh5 Qf8 25. e4 Bd8 26. f5 b4 27. Bg6 Rxh4
28. Qxh4 bxc3 29. bxc3 Bf6 30. Qxh7+ Rxh7 31. Rxh7+ Kg8
32. Bf7+ Qxf7 33. Rxf7 1-0