Openings of the world championship revisited in Wijk aan Zee

Both Topalov and Kramnik are playing in the tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Since the world championship, Kramnik has played only his match against Deep Fritz. Topalov did play directly after the world championship match in the Essent tournament, where he probably was very tired.

Yesterday Kramnik played a fantastic game against Anand in the Catalan line that I recommended to Topalov in my game three and game five previews, but which Topalov never tried. Don't miss the video of Kramnik analysing the game for the public.

Today Kramnik repeated the Slav line from game six of the world championship against Aronian. Aronian went into the same endgame, but did not achieve anything, and a quick draw followed.

Topalov seems to be back in form and got his third win today. Against Ponomariov he played a King's Indian, which later transposed into a Benoni structure. He was probably inspired by Radjabov's example, who is the only top player using the King's Indian on a regular basis. Radjabov managed three points out of three games with the King's Indian so far (two impressive, one lucky) and he leads the tournament.

Round eleven will see Kramnik-Radjabov, and I hope this will be a King's Indian, too. In round twelve there is Topalov-Kramnik, which should be very interesting. And in the last round thirteen we have Radjabov-Topalov - lets hope none of these games will see a quick draw.