Khanty Final Round: No Miracle

The fourth and final stage of the 2014-2015 Grand Prix Series. This tournament is specially important as it will determine the winner and runner up of this year, both of which will automatically qualify for the 2015 Candidates Tournament - the winner of that will challenge Magnus Carlsen to the World Championship Match! The tournament is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk, Ugra, Russia from May 13 to May 27.

Final Round

Daniel King shows the highlights of round 11

The FIDE President making his arrival

Karjakin, Sergey ½-½ Gelfand, Boris
A strange line of the Najdorf... it is not common that in this Sicilian black ends up with an isolated queen's pawn! Gelfand's compensation for this structural weakness came in the way of good piece play and swift development. Karjakin had trouble coordinating his pieces, and it was never natural for him to develop. The game was agreed drawn with a dynamic balance on the board.

Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½ Jakovenko, Dmitry
Everyone's focus was clearly on this game. Jakovenko needed to win to guarantee his spot on the Candidates, while a draw required a series of highly unlikely and borderline miraculous results for him to qualify. Nakamura came into the game with a very sound and clear strategy: play solid, trade everything, draw. This is basically what happened in the game as Jakovenko simply could not create enough complications.

It all came down to this game, but Jakovenko could not create real complications

Giri, Anish ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
One of the results that needed to go Jakovenko's way for the Russian to qualify was for Caruana to lose. That did not come close to happening - even though Giri's position was slightly preferable from the opening, his attack on the kingside initiated with a quick g4 advance backfired badly. Caruana had the much better position, he decided to play it safe and draw the game, securing his place.

Giri tried to create fireworks in the last round, but they did not go so well

Dominguez, Leinier ½-½ Grischuk, Alexander
The Sveshnikov Sicilian was a variation that had a surge of popularity in the early 2000's, but has since fallen out of fashion. Gelfand still uses it regularly, but besides him it is not a common guest in top level tournaments. Grischuk employed it today and obtained a relatively easy draw. Dominguez's attack on the kingside with queen and knight was only enough for a perpetual.

Grischuk tied with many others in sixth place

Svidler, Peter 1-0 Jobava, Baadur
The only decisive game of the round. Jobava had a bad position from a dubious variation in the French, and Svidler's positional advantage kept growing until they reached an endgame with the Russian player being simply up a pawn. Jobava certainly had good drawing chances with precise play, but that was very difficult to achieve. After a couple of mistakes he wound up in a completely hopeless position and was forced to resign.

Jobava finished 11th, with four losses, one win and many draws

Tomashevsky, Evgeny ½-½ Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
If anything, this game is a metaphor for how Tomashevsky's tournament went. He came in as the leader of the Grand Prix, and even had a good start. He kept chances to the bitter end, but it simply was not enough. Even today, had a perfect sequence of results happened, he still could have qualified. At the end, he was not close to competing in the Candidates via direct qualification.

In the game Tomashevksy had an advantage from the opening. He managed to win not one, but two pawns, and yet MVL's pressure with his major pieces was very annoying. White had trouble bringing his rook into the game nad fending off the black pieces. He gave up a pawn in a last ditch effort to win a 4v3 Queen endgame, but he was unsuccessful after more than 100 moves.

A very disappointing 10th for Tomashevsky

As usual tomorrow we will bring you the final standings of the Grand Prix, a recap of the tournament and photos from the closing ceremony. For now, it is clear that both Caruana and Nakamura will be representing America in the 2015 Candidates Tournament!

Standings

Round Eleven Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Photos from the official website by Kirill Merkurev

Schedule

Links Official tournament site Download 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.