Anand Beats Kramnik In No Castling Match

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GM Viswanathan Anand defeated GM Vladimir Kramnik 2.5-1.5 in a four-game No Castling chess match in Dortmund, Germany. Anand’s win in the first game was decisive in this event where the players were not allowed to castle.

The idea for this match originates from DeepMind’s latest paper, co-written by Kramnik, in which the self-learning chess engine AlphaZero was used to explore the design of different variants of the game of chess with different sets of rules. One of the variants discussed—many of which you can try on Chess.com yourself!—was No Castling. DeepMind also supported the match between Anand and Kramnik and plans to sponsor the event next year as well.

The match saw all four games starting with 1.c4, with Black responding 1…c5 in the first three before Anand tried a Tarrasch setup in game four. There was a lot of exciting chess, but the first game turned out to be the decisive one.

Viswanathan Anand Dortmund No Castling — Viswanathan Anand. Photo: Guido Kohlen/Sparkassen Chess Trophy.

All games

The match was part of the annual chess festival in Dortmund, which has been held annually since 1973 and was only skipped last year due to the pandemic. There was also a closed tournament this year called the “Deutschland Grand Prix.” The winner was GM Pavel Eljanov with 6/9.

Final Standings

#	Fed	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	Pts	SB
1		Eljanov,Pavel	2671	2743		0	½	½	½	½	1	1	1	1	6.0/9
2		Kollars,Dmitrij	2607	2708	1		½	½	½	½	1	0	½	1	5.5/9	24.5
3		Fridman,Daniel	2608	2708	½	½		½	½	½	½	½	1	1	5.5/9	22.75
4		Kamsky,Gata	2658	2625	½	½	½		½	½	½	½	½	½	4.5/9	20.25
5		Ponomariov,Ruslan	2631	2628	½	½	½	½		½	½	½	½	½	4.5/9	20.25
6		Meier,Georg	2628	2628	½	½	½	½	½		½	½	½	½	4.5/9	20.25
7		Keymer,Vincent	2591	2632	0	0	½	½	½	½		1	½	1	4.5/9	18
8		Kasimdzhanov,Rustam	2662	2586	0	1	½	½	½	½	0		½	½	4.0/9
9		Heimann,Andreas	2599	2511	0	½	0	½	½	½	½	½		0	3.0/9	13.75
10		Bartel,Mateusz	2626	2508	0	0	0	½	½	½	0	½	1		3.0/9	11.75