Paris 01: Gelfand wins and five draws

Sixth FIDE Grand Prix - Paris 2013

If you ever thought Paris was dubbed “The City of Light” thanks to its early-on electrical street lighting or for the fabulous night life, you’ll be just partially right; the famous nickname dates back to the Age of Enlightenment, when the French capital became the centre of education, of arts and philosophy, thus the "enlightened place to be.

With an illustrious artistic pedigree and with more recognizable landmarks than any other city in the world, Paris stubbornly remains probably the most filmed and photographed and wanted place on earth. In short: an ideal stage for the final and decisive cultural event on the chess players’ agenda – the sixth FIDE Grand Prix!

So we might have the perfect scene – a marvelous metropolis; the producers – FIDE in collaboration with FFE (French Chess Federation); the dates of the play: 21st September – 5th October 2013; an interesting plot: a war to the knife combat for the qualifying spot in the Candidates event; but where is the vital element, the…actors?!

Dear chess friends, I am happy and honored to raise the curtain and I hope you’ll get your front seat for a great show!

Press chief WGM Alina l'Ami

Before going any further, in case you are confused with the world cycle, you will find here a more detailed explanation of what you might expect from this high class event. let’s have a look at the FIDE Grand Prix standings after the 5th leg:

Opening ceremony

The venue: Chapelle de la Villedieu was founded in 1180 by soldier-monks of the Order of the Temple. It is the first milestone from Paris to Chartres on the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain (where according to tradition the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried).

Leinier Dominguez Perez arriving with his wife, Yanelys

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti? No, it's Kirsan Ilyumzhinov adressing...

... a congregation chess players at the opening ceremony of the Sixth FIDE Grand Prix

Champagne bottles used for the drawing of colours (Ruslan Ponomariov got 12)

The players got to keep the champagne!

And then (gasp!): a hip hop break dance performance, in the church ...

... by a French/North African group called Black Blanc Beur (click for some lively action)

A stage presentation by the group: Black Blanc Beur "Chroniques du périmètre". Enjoy!

The tournament

Time control: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, and then each player gets 15 minutes and an increment of 30 seconds per move after the second time control). No draws offers: Sofia rules!

Participants and Prizes

Round 1

Chapelle de la villedieu has been transformed into a beautiful playing hall

The lamps provide much needed extra lighting so every board is well lit

Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½ Tomashevsky, Evgeny
The game was a very sharp Marshall gambit (the triangle set-up one, not the Spanish Marshall) in which Tomashevsky found himself out of preparation rather quickly. Nakamura sacrificed a piece on move eleven (!) to obtain a strong attack against Black's king, but Tomashevsky played very precisely and counter sacrificed a rook (!) to obtain a very powerful counterinitiative. Nakamura had no choice but to counter by sacrificing another bishop and force the weakening of Black's king. The game ended in a draw by perpetual in what was definitely a very exciting game.

Fresh of a fantastic World Cup in Tromso, Tomashevsky is greeted in this Grand Prix with many variation to calculate

Ivanchuk was simply unable to obtain anything out of the opening against Cuba's number one

Ivanchuk, Vassily ½-½ Dominguez Perez, Leinier
Ivanchuk obtained nothing from his Zukertort set-up and in an equal the game players basically agreed to repeat moves and draw. This entirely circumvents the Sophia rules under which the tournament is being played. Strong grandmasters can see when a move being played is an offer for a repetition. It seems crazy to force the players to play on in what they consider to be an equal position - after all you can't demand them not to play what they consider to be the "strongest" move, however it is obvious that this is a giant loophole in the Sophia rules.

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Bacrot, Etienne
The Italian super-star was able to obtain a very slight edge from this Scotch, but it was not enough to win the game. With clever regrouping of his pieces and an excellent feel for what was truly important in the position Bacrot was able to neutralize White's pair of bishops and his superior pawn structure by maintaining enormous pressure on the c4 pawn throughout the game. White's own pawn on e5 limited the scopre of his dark-squared bishop and he was unable to use this pair of bishops advantage. The players repeated moves in an equal position that was at least much more fighting than the Ivanchuk-Dominguez game.

Despite his small edge, Caruana could not push for a win because of his opponent's stubborn and clever defense

Grischuk, Alexander ½-½ Wang Hao
Wang Hao's French left his king somewhat in the open. He needed the rest of his pieces to create counteractivity and this allowed Grischuk to sacrifice a piece on the kingside for a strong attack. However the Chinese always had the situation under control and Grischuk was forced to give a perpetual when his attack was dying down.

The opening move was executed by Svetlana Titova, the Deputy Director General of Economy and Finance of the group "Titan", one of the main sponsors of this tournament

Fressinet, Laurent ½-½ Ponomariov, Ruslan
Ponomariov was able to neutralize Fressinet's White pieces without too many problems. The players kept playing on in a strategicaly interesting game. Black was able to break through on the queenside with b5, a standard idea in this pawn structure. White's b-pawn was left isolated and weak, but Fressinet was able to exchange enough pieces to make Ponomariov's d6 pawn vulnerable. With this the game further simplified into a drawn endgame.

Gelfand was the only victor of today's round and leads the tournament

Gelfand, Boris 1-0 Giri, Anish
In a wild position Giri decided to sacrifice an exchange for a pawn and compensation. However his followup with 30...Qxb8 was innacurate and allowed Gelfand to rearrange his pieces in such a way that Black's activity was contained. Slowly but surely White's advantage grew, and once the queens were traded it was lights out for Giri as the extra exchange was too much for him to handle.

Grandmaster Sergey Tiviakov is providing live commentary on the official website

Replay all games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Schedule

The games start at 15:00h European time, 17:00h Moscow, 9 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be 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.