Gashimov R1: Carlsen with a flying start

Magnus Carlsen leads at the Gashimov Memorial

The Vugar Gashimov Memorial kicked off on Sunday with its first round. The tournament is being held in the town on Shamkir in Azerbaijan, from the 20th to 30th of April, in the memory of the great player Vugar Gashimov who passed away on the 10th of January 2014.

The tournament is divided into two groups. The A Group features six players: the World Champion Magnus Carlsen (2881), Fabiano Caruana (2783), Sergey Karjakin (2772), Hikaru Nakamura (2772), and the two Azeri players Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2760) and Teimour Radjabov (2713). The wonderful thing about the A group is that no player was born before 1985! A field that is very young and energetic, and we can expect to witness a lot of fighting games.

The B group consists of ten players. The top five seeds are players from various countries and the bottom five are all from Azerbaijan. The players are Wang Hao from China, Pavel Eljanov from Ukraine, Etienne Bacrot from France, Wojtaszek Radoslaw from Poland, the latest European champion Alexander Motylev from Russia and the five Azeri players Rauf Mamedov, Eltaj Safarli, Gadir Guseinov, Vasif Durarbayli and Nidjat Abasov.

Magnus Carlsen – Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 1-0
Magnus opened with the queen pawn, and Mamedyarov replied with a Slav. With Magnus playing 5.Bg5 it seemed that we were going to be treated to a sharp and complex game in the Botvinnik or the Moscow Variation. It was not to be as Mamedyarov chose the super solid Cambridge Springs Variation. This variation has received a surge in popularity since Carlsen won with the black pieces against Boris Gelfand in Candidates 2013. Mamedyarov got a decent position out of the opening but there was one factor which required some attention. The Azeri player had his bishop on a3 which was out of the game. With skilful play and making moves like Rxd5 instead of the more attractive cxd5, Carlsen played on the kingside with an extra piece. His move 20.h4!? in the middlegame was so original and beautiful it makes us understand what is so different about this Norwegian. As more and more pieces got exchanged, White’s advantage kept growing until a stage was reached when Black had to give up. The black bishop on a5 stood almost for the entire game as a spectator. A characteristic flawless and effortless victory by the world champion, who is off to a flying start!

Daniel King shows the game Carlsen vs Mamedyarov

Sergey Karjakin- Teimour Radjabov 1/2-1/2
Karjakin (above) played 1.e4 and met with the French Defense by Radjabov (below). The Qxd5 line in the Tarrasch Variation has received quite some popularity, thanks to recent books being written on it. White had a small lead in development, but it wasn’t too significant as he couldn’t cause much harm to Black. Radjabov completed his development and castled kingside. In the meantime Karjakin was able to play Bxf6 gxf6 and weaken the white king. With moves like Qh5 and Re3 being made, it seemed as if Radjabov was in deep trouble. But the very strong move Be4 with the idea of relocating the bishop to g6 solved all of Black’s problems. In the endgame that arose, White was a tad better but Black was always within the drawing zone. A fighting game by the two players.

Hikaru Nakamura - Fabiano Caruana 1/2- 1/2
What a thriller this game was! It started with an English Opening in which White managed to get the Maroczy Bind with the pawns e4 and c4. Black had his typical Hedgehog setup with pawns all nicely established on the third rank and pieces placed behind them. Nakamura kept expanding on all sides of the board with moves like b4, f4 and a4. However, everyone knows that Hedgehog is a tenacious creature. Once Nakamura lost his chance of getting some advantage, Caruana took over! First the excellent move a5 secured the c5 square for his knight, and then he activated his hitherto passive b7 bishop. It was so surprising to see the white position crumble in a matter of few moves. Caruana’s queen had penetrated into the heart of Nakamura’s position, and his rook was going to join in. Just when the victory was a few moves away the Italian made a horrible mistake, letting the American come back into the game and save his position. Many people would have been dejected and made a mistake of dragging the game along. But not Caruana. The moment he saw that his advantage was gone, he agreed to a draw. A wonderful objective decision showing the high level of chess maturity.

Images from the official web site

Video of round one

Schedule and results

Live commentary on Playchess

– A separate report on the opening ceremony and the B group will follow shortly –

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN: Group A – Group B 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.