Champion Of Champions (part five)

HERE is the updated tournament bracket after four matches.

Round of 16               Quarter-Finals
1. Steinitz
v----------------------------Carlsen
16. Carlsen (+102.5)

8.Tal (+8.5)
v-----------------------------Tal
9.Petrosian

6. Botvinnik (+66)
v-----------------------------Botvinnik
11. Fischer

13. Kasparov
v-----------------------------Alekhine
4. Alekhine (+21.5)

3. Capablanca
v--------------------------
14. Kramnik

5. Euwe
v--------------------------
12. Karpov

7. Smyslov
v--------------------------
10. Spassky

15. Anand
v--------------------------
2. Lasker

Round of 16
Match Five: Capablanca v Kramnik
Game One
José Capablanca - Vladimir Kramnik

Spanish Four Knights Rubinstein

1.e4!?

This is surprising, but there are 393 of Capablanca's games with 1.e4 in ChessBase's 2020 Mega database compared with 306 for 1.d4.

1...e5 2.Nf3 Nc6

This easily beats 2...Nf6 - 253 games to 105.

3.Bb5 Nf6 4.Nc3!? Nd4

No games in Mega20 with Capablanca facing 4...Nd4

The engines Stockfish11 and Komodo11.01 give Capablanca an averaged advantage of +25.5, which should make for a tense second game.

Game Two

Vladimir Kramnik - José Capablanca

QGD Orthodox

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5

Capablanca preferred this over 3...b6 by 25 games to 20.

4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.Bg5

Kramnik has played this and 5.cxd5 four times each, scoring 75% in both cases, but recording a much better rating performance with the text (+116 compared with +61 for 5.cxd5).

5...Be7

Kramnik has not faced 5...Be7 so this is far as we can go

The engines give Kramnik an averaged advantage of +37.5, meaning he wins the match with a score of +12.

Here is the updated tournament bracket.

Round of 16               Quarter-Finals
1. Steinitz
v----------------------------Carlsen
16. Carlsen (+102.5)

8.Tal (+8.5)
v----------------------------Tal
9.Petrosian

6. Botvinnik (+66)
v----------------------------Botvinnik
11. Fischer

13. Kasparov
v----------------------------Alekhine
4. Alekhine (+21.5)

3. Capablanca
v----------------------------Kramnik
14. Kramnik (+12)

5. Euwe
v--------------------------
12. Karpov

7. Smyslov
v--------------------------
10. Spassky

15. Anand
v--------------------------
2. Lasker