Kramnik, Kasparov draw game 3

Challenger to Gary Kasparov's throne of 'Chess Dynasty', Russia's Vladimir Kramnik resisted all the advances by the wizard in a Ruy Lopez to draw their third round game of BrainGames World Chess Championship in London on Friday night.

Kramnik, who earned a point cushion with a second round win, repeated the Berlin Defence which proved so successful in game one and drew in 53 moves to lead 2-1 in their 16-round match.

Kasparov, however, cannot be counted out as he is known to strike when the going gets tough.

World number one Kasparov, finding Kramnik opting for Berlin defence again, castled his White king and rook on the fourth move and waited for his opponent to reveal his plans.

Kramnik accounted for Kasparov's 'e' pawn with a knight though White regained the advantage of the better pawn struture. Black, however, had two bishops and a solid position.

Kasparov tried variety with Rad1 on the 12th move - a textbook move used by the Spanish Grandmaster Alexei Shirov. Kramnik had evidently prepared an improved answer than 12.a5 as he played 'b6'.

But this intense play put Kramnik half an hour behind Kasparov on the clock. This was the first time in the match that Kasparov appeared to have come out of the opening with the initiative both in position and on the clock.

Kasparov's knight perched on d5 gave threatening moments to the Black and the White looked well set to let his kingside pawns in motion.

White knight on d5 was the apparent key to Kasparov holding on to his domination. With time advantage still on his side, Kasparov put Kramnik in a corner with seemingly little chance to draw level on strength.

Black took a major decision by wrecking his pawn structure in exchange for pieces activity and in turn ate 10 minutes from Kasparov's clock.

Nevertheless Kramnik was left with only half an hour thinking time left to make 20 moves while Kasparov looked heading for a clear plan of doubling rooks on the d-file and invading on d8.

The challenger went for mass liquidation and appeared to gain some respite with a classically well chalked out defence.

Though still having majority of pawns on the kingside, White could not be happy with Black's queenside pawns doubled. This let Kramnik to gain some solid ground as his pieces were left well-anchored on the light squares.

Kasparov tried to realign his pieces to attack Black's pawn on h6, but Kramnik stirred up the trouble on the other flank by pushing his pawn to a4 as both players had 15 minutes left for 10 moves.

After a quiet strategic struggle, Kramnik's 31st move caused the board to erupt in flames. Retreat of the White rook seemed to create a highly dangerous passed pawn.

The game went into an amazing position with six passed pawns on the board with a theoritical advantage to White. But as the first time control was passed, Kramnik withstood all the pressure before the two GMs agreed to split the point.