Beijing Rd9: Mamedyarov wins, leads

The fifth stage of the FIDE Grand Prix Series is taking place between the 3rd and 17th of July 2013 on the premises of the Chinese Chess Association in Beijing. The time controls are 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move 61 onwards. The games start at 3 p.m. local time, except the last round. The Grand Prix Series consists of six tournaments to be held over two years (2012-2013). 18 top players participate in four of these 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.

Karjakin stopped the bleeding and obtained an important draw with black

Kamsky, Gata - Karjakin, Sergey ½-½
Kamsky on ocassions decides to use unknown 1.d4 systems coupled with a quick Bf4 to make the game strategically interesting, theoretically off-beat and relatively closed. This seemed to work today as Karjakin gave White some strategic pluses. Unfortunately for him the American closed the position a little bit too much, and was unable to make any progress despite enjoying those pluses.

Ivanchuk, Vassily - Leko, Peter ½-½
The Karpov variation of the Nimzo-Indian is a line that has been tried time and time again. The specific continuation in this game is a typical idea: Black sacrifices a pawn but shatters White's kingside and simplifies all of the incoming pressure. Leko had to show only simple technique to hold the draw in the rook endgame as White's extra pawn was meaningless.

Wang Hao - Gelfand, Boris ½-½
This certainly was a game full of mistakes. Wang Hao obtained a comfortable position with the two bishops, but strangely decided to trade one of them off early for an opponent's knight. Soon afterwards he blundered a piece in time trouble but Gelfand did not see the correct tactical continuation. Through further errors White found himself in the defending side of an ugly queen endgame, and just when it seemed he would reach the draw a gross blunder on move 82 was met by an excellent king move to the corner that forced coronation. However Gelfand was unable to find the subsequent queen maneouver (Qg8-c4-f1) that would secure the win and instead settled for an immediate draw.

Yifan hasn't missed a beat in the Grand Prix since winning the Asian Indoor tournament and regaining second place in the live top women's list

Grischuk, Alexander - Morozevich, Alexander ½-½
White seems to be obtaining a solid but small edge from these type of Slav positions in which he can successfully trade the f3 knight for the light-squared bishop. However that is all Grischuk was able to obtain and he was unable to fully break Morozevich's defenses.

Punishing opponent's mistakes has been his key to the top: Mamedyarov is now solo leader

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar - Giri, Anish 1-0
Giri must have forgotten his preparation, or his tactical ability, as a quick blunder in the form of 15...Rad8?? allowed Mamedyarov to obtain a decisive amount of material early on in the game, while the rest of the moves were truly unnecessary.

Unfortunately for Giri his mstake came early and it was too costly

Topalov, Veselin - Wang Yue ½-½
Topalov's superior pawn structure was strangely compensated by Black's activity given by the early rook lift Rh8-g6-e6. A truly strange game, in which Black quickly sacrificed his queen to obtain an impregnable position.

Information and pictures by FIDE press chief WGM Anastasiya Karlovich

Standings

Schedule and pairings

Note: Time given is the local round time.

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