Bacrot vs Aronian

Kevin’s Commentary: Bacrot played the Anti-Moscow Gambit and showed that if you are going to give up material you better have a good reason. Bacrot was able to give up an early pawn to gain a lead in development and also have a spacial advantage. Anytime you see a game with GMs with an early gambit, you usually see that player playing for the win (yes many GM’s do play for the tie sometimes) and going all out with elaborate sacrifices later on. It is important that if you play a gambit that you don’t play passive afterwards. This defeats the whole purpose of giving up material. Bacrot knew this and used his spacial advantage to relentlessly attack the black king. His outpost bishop was replace by a pawn (later to be promoted) and black was left with little to defend with.