Mark Taimanovv GM Mark Taimanov annotates the games of the 2nd round:




  Good evening dear chess lovers! Taking an opportunity I'd like to congratulate you with the start of such chess event, which has to become one of the most important in this year. Linares tournament with its glorious traditions is the event, which determines the highest level of sociaty intereset in chess. As it was in the last century when the dominant of our attention was the combination of the names of G. Kasparov and A. Karpov, nowadays there's another intrigue - the combination of the other 2 great "K"- G. Kasparov and V. Kramnik.
It's not the secret that the hierarchical uncertainty reigns the chess Olymp, especially as Anand is between two "K". Only one thing is obvious - Kasparov is still strongest(although probably his opponents disagree with this). But there's no answer who is the World Champion now. That's why the competition of two "K" in this super-tournament rivets our attention so much.

And so, the 2nd round.

In the game with Kasparov youthful Radjabov has used a popular variation of Sicilian, where Black is blocking the center at the price of the concession to his opponent important central square d5, hoping for free mobilization of his forces. There the game has a positional character without early confrontation, with a complicated struggle in the midgame of closed kind.
The events in this game are developing very interesting. Kasparov gained the "gift" - an outpost on d5 and aspires to the initiative persistently. By exchanges youthful Grandmaster could to simplify the game and to unblock the siege of the d5-square and the game passed to the Rook ending where as it seemed all the problems of Black were solved. Even temporary pawn sacrifice(probably Radjabov underestimated the moves a5 and c4) did not change the drawn estimation of position. However the problems of Black were more difficult than it looked before and Kasparov could support his initiative by the impetious march of his King to the center.
But nevertheless as it well known the rook endgames one can't win and the duel Kasparov - Radjabov is a new confirmation of this expression. The young GM defended (counter-played?!) correctly and White's advantage was not sufficient.
Draw on 35th move.

The different opening situation in the game Kramnik - Shirov. Here opponents have played one of the well-known variations of Rui Lopez, in which the theoretical lines stretches till the deep midgame and here one should expect the original course of game after hereabouts 20 moves.
 The 1st result was fixed here, the struggle in this game had no development, although it seemed that the midgame was in favour of Kramnik. His pieces had active position while Black's forces were not mobilized yet. But then happened unexpected... Opponents agreed for a draw. I predicted such course of this game and it happened, although in rather paradoxical way.

The openinig in the game Topalov - Vallejo is played without especial unrests. Quiet variation of Queen's gambit gave a slightly better postition for White, but Black has no problem with mobilization as well.
In this game the fights carried a "local significance". In full accordance with classical ideas of Queen gambit Topalov concentrated his forces in the center, then created a vulnerable pawn on c6 in Black's camp, and when it moved on the next square fixed on this pawn the fire of his pieces. He prompted to pressure also on d5-pawn, but all the time only one weakness were as an object of his attacks and Black had resources to defend it. Certainly it was possible in final position to try to open a "second front" on the kingside by way of g3-g4 but this is connected with some risk on which Topalov was not ready.
One more draw.


There are not sufficient conflict situations on all the boards after 2 hours, although everywhere White has some opening adavntage.

In short the second round didn't warrant all expectations...