2016 Shamkir Rd2: From lukewarm to scalding

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:

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Round Two

What an exciting round! Three decisive results came in just as the first round was full of draws. One of the top games of the tournament, Giri vs. Karjakin, looked like it was going to be just a boring draw, but even in such positions one must be very careful.

No one suffers the games of Anish like Sopiko. GM Erwin l'Ami keeps her company here.

Giri, Anish 1-0 Karjakin, Sergey
Lesson of the game: never let your guard down

That, ladies and gentleman, is a win

Harikrishna, Pentala 1-0 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
Harikrishna made it look easy to defeat Mamedyarov! Perhaps exploiting some of his opponent's weaknesses, perhaps also a combination with the fact that Mamedyarov's opening choice was rather questionable, it all seemed to go extremely smoothly for the Indian player today. With this result he is one point behind Vishy Anand for the top Indian player.

Making it look easy! Pentala is up to 2769!

Eljanov, Pavel 0-1 Caruana, Fabiano
Caruana's Nd7 choice was unusual but perfectly playable. Even though the computers claim that most of the game was about equal, it all seemed very unpleasant to me from a human perspective. White was always defending and had to be in constant fear of his king getting mated. Eventually, Eljanov cracked and Caruana took advantage of it.

Pavel was Fabi's first victim this tournament

Hou Yifan ½-½ Eltaj, Safarli
A pretty crazy game, specially in the movements of White's rook. This French came was quite interesting and worth looking at, unfortunately at some point Yifan felt that her pawn structure was too weak and was forced into trading off into a drawn endgame. Perhaps Eltaj should have prevented the queen trade somehow and tried to exploit the structural advantage.

The game between these players was actually rather interesting. I refreshingly sharp French!

Mamedov, Rauf ½-½ Radjabov, Teimour
The Azerbaijani vs. Azerbaijani games are usually not the most interesting ones of the tournament, and this was no exception.

Rauf and Teimour barely showed up today

Round Two 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.