Thessaloniki R03: Ivanchuk's Tragedy

From May 22 to June 03, 2013, the fourth stage of the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2012-2013 is taking place in Thessaloniki, Greece. Twelve players are competing in a round robin tournament with time controls of 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes and an increment of 30 seconds per move for each player. The Grand Prix Series consists of six tournaments to be held over two years, with 18 top players, each participating in four of the six tournaments. The winner and second placed player overall of the Grand Prix Series will qualify for the Candidates Tournament to be held in March 2014.

Round three report

Nakamura, Hikaru - Bacrot, Etienne ½-½
Hikaru is always a fighter, and after two losses it was clear that he wanted very badly to beat Bacrot. However he was never given any real chance to fight for the advantage, and using a very solid set-up Bacrot was able to fend of every threat and lock up the position. The American eventually had to be happy with a draw.

Ponomariov, Ruslan - Topalov, Veselin ½-½
In a very modern way of treating the Sicilian Topalov shattered his own pawn structure for open lines for his rooks and bishops while at the same time taking away some key central squares from the white knights. Topalov held the advantage for the majority of the game but was unable to convert in the end.

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam (above) - Morozevich, Alexander ½-½
Kasimdzhanov played an enterprising exchange sacrifice against Morozevich which yielded strong positional pressure and a clear target on d6. Morozevich very quickly returned the material and although he was worse and facing the pair of bishops, he didn't have that much trouble holding on to the half point.

Svidler, Peter - Caruana, Fabiano ½-½
A very sharp line in the Gruenfeld simply forced too many piece exchanges from both sides, and the game ended in a repetition which neither side could really avoid.

Caps are in in America, as both Hikaru and Gata have used them in this tournament.
The new proposal to FIDE on dress code could potentially ban them, however.

Kamsky, Gata - Grischuk, Alexander ½-½
Kamsky always has his 'systems' that he likes to employ. With white he plays off-beat d4 setups that have given him good results. This time by move 19 he already had a decisive advantage against Grischuk, and instead of playing 24.e6 which would have given him a crushing attack he decided to play it safe and it gave enough time for Grischuk to regroup and stop some of the threats. Kamsky's last mistake was 27.f4? which gave away all his initiative.

Genius and unpredictable: Vassily Ivanchuk

Ivanchuk, Vassily - Dominguez Perez, Leinier 0-1
In this version of the Gruenfeld, Ivanchuk made Dominguez seem like a barely master level player. Every move Ivanchuk played put more pressure on Dominguez and kept improving his advantage. By move 23 Dominguez could have resigned with a clear conscience. And yet, if there is one player that it might be acceptable not to resign against, that is Ivanchuk. Inexplicably he kept missing chances to finish off the Cuban, and eventually even blundered a knight and the game. A true tragedy for Vassily, who had a +14 (!) advantage against Leinier according to Houdini 3.0.

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All pictures by Anastasiya Karlovich

Schedule and results

The games start at 14:00h Eastern European Summer time, 15:00h Moscow, 7 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here. The commentary on Playchess begins one hour after the start of the games and is free for premium members.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.