Game of the Week: Baramidze, Akobian

As I’ve mentioned before, Russia has often struggled in team competitions. They could manage only third in the European Team Championships in November, and were looking up at the Ukrainians for most of the World Team Championship. They did manage to defeat Ivanchuk and company and overtake them in the next to last round, coasting to the gold with Ukraine losing the tiebreak for silver to China. Russia’s struggles were largely due to an early loss to the American team. The U.S. never managed to challenge for the medals, but their fourth place finish is extremely respectable. One of the bright spots was the gold medal performance by fifth board Varuzhan Akobian. Akobian’s 4/6 score included the featured game this week, an interesting, compact tactical skirmish with David Baramidze of Germany. And it all came out of a Petroff’s, believe it or not.