2016 Shamkir Rd1: A lukewarm start

Third Shamkir Tournament in memory of Vugar Gashimov

The Vugar Gashimov Memorial, is being held in Shamkir, Azerbaijan, from the May 26 to June 4, 2016, in memory of the great Vugar Gashimov, who passed away on the 10th of January 2014. The tournament features ten world-class players: Fabiano Caruana (2795), Anish Giri (2790), Sergey Karjakin (2779), Pavel Eljanov (2750), Pentala Harikrishna (2763), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2750), Teimour Radjabov (2726), Eltaj Safarli (2664), Hou Yifan (2663) and Rauf Mamedov (2650). The time control is 120/40 moves + 60/20 moves + 15 minutes + 30 seconds/move at 61st move.

All games start at 3 p.m. local time = 1 p.m. in Europe (CEST), one hour earlier in Britain, and 2 p.m. in Moscow. You can find the starting time at your location here. Today's pairings:

Watch it live on Playchess!

When the games are running, clicking on the above link will take you to our live broadcast. It is free and open to all – as a Premium Account member you have access to the Live Book, Chat, chess engine analysis – all in your browser, on a notebook, tablet or even your smartphone. And the Let's Check function will show you what the most powerful computers in the world think of the current position, as each move is being played.

Round One

Definitely not the start that the fans were expecting, but there were some fighting games in Shamkir. The most interesting one, bar none, was the game between Safarli-Eljanov

The playing stage for round one

Safarli, Eltaj ½-½ Eljanov, Pavel

Miss of the day, no doubt

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Harikrishna, Pentala
Caruana essayed the vogue 7.Qf3 move against the Paulsen/Tajmanov Sicilian. Harirkishna replied in turn with an interesting new idea of trading knights on d4 and pushing an early e5. The game was close to becoming a Sicilian bloodfest, with both sides attacking on opposite flanks and the first person to push through winning, but unfortunately a timely queen trade left Caruana with a very tiny advantage in an endgame, which fizzled out into a draw.

This game was almost, almost very interesting, but then the queens came off

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
Karjakin came to the board and simply repeated his preparation against Mamedyarov to get a very comfortable draw. Mamedyarov's knight went all the way to b8 (!) but it was never in any real danger of getting caught. After the trade of several pieces a draw became inevitable.

Karjakin's preparation is one of his strongest suits,
and sometimes he can kill a game before it even begins

Mamedov, Rauf ½-½ Giri, Anish
If you are wondering why the 2.c3 Sicilian is never seen at the top level, well, this game and several others might convince you as to why. There are several variations that black can choose to make the game rather dull and drawish. Giri's choice forced an early trade of queens and eliminated most of White's initiative. In the ensuing rook endgame perhaps Giri was the one doing a bit of pressing, but the draw was never in question.

Giri showed why the 2.c3 Sicilian is not popular

Mamedov tried to surprise his opponent, but it was to no avail

Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ Hou Yifan
Even though the style of position is well known - that is to say a Catalan type situation in which the central pawns are traded - I cannot seem to find any instance of this particular variation being played in my database. Yifan perfectly understood how to force the equalization, however, and a very creative and precise rook swing starting with the bizarre looking 20...Rg8! meant that White's small initiative was reduced to nothing.

Radjabov is known for squeezing his opponent's with minimal, but safe, advantages. Today that paid no dividends.

Round One Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Standings

Schedule and results

Live commentary on Playchess

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.