Khanty Rd1: Jakovenko, Tomashevsky win

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.

Round One

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime ½-½ Gelfand, Boris
Perhaps the game of the day. A series of explosive sacrifices netted MVL an extra pawn, but Gelfand's position was still good enough to hold the draw.

Gelfand cooly withstood the attack

MVL came in a fighting mood to Khanty-Mansiysk

Jobava, Baadur 0-1 Tomashevsky, Evgeny
Tomashevsky employed a very early c5 idea in the a6 Semi-Slav. The idea seemed to backfire and his position was very passive. Jobava had control of the isutation, more space basically everywhere on the board. Things got messy when the Georgian player committed two mistakes in a row, allowing Tomashevsky to strike in the center with e5. After that White's pieces looked awkward and Tomashevsky finished his opponent off with a kingside attack of just queen and bishop.

Jobava actually played theory, but it did not go well after he allowed Tomashevsky to break through

Grischuk, Alexander ½-½ Svidler, Peter
Someone call the press! Svidler did not play the Grunfeld! That, however, was the only highlight of a game that was dead drawn by move 18.

Geoffrey Borg cannot believe there was no Grunfeld today

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Dominguez, Leinier
Dominguez employed a very solid Berlin Defense and had no problems holding equality against Caruana, who is normally regarded as one of the best players of these lines with both white and black.

A solid start for Cuba's #1

Jakovenko, Dmitry 1-0 Giri, Anish
Jakovenko played in the most classical of styles. He obtained a very quick pair of bishops from the Ragozin, something that is not normally regarded as the best way of handling the position. However Giri strangely decided to open up the center with e5 - a typical mistake that gave White's bishops too much power. Jakovenko traded his advantage for a structural one in a double rook endgame and won with very good technique. A game worth replaying for people seeking to make progress and understanding positional nuances.

The opening move was good luck for Jakovenko

Karjakin, Sergey ½-½ Nakamura, Hikaru
A Dragon Sicilian! Unfortunately it was not as exciting as it could be. The queens were traded early and, probably unbeknownst to the players, following the recent game Blomqvist-Azarov from Cappelle la Grande up to the 20th move. The endgame was quite drawish and the point was split in half.

Even in a rare Dragon, Karjakin finds a way to follow deep theory

Nakamura had played the Dragon this year, against Naroditsky in the U.S. Championship

Round One Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Photos from the official website by Kirill Merkurev

Schedule

Links Official tournament site 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.