Moscow Grand Prix: Ding Liren wins it all

Photos by Max Avdeev

Round nine

It was a very suitable ending to a tournament that had really gotten exciting before cooling down just as much. The question on everyone’s mind was whether the players would play it safe, or would the leaders try to finish in beauty. We soon found out.

Mamedyarov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave both played it safe, though this decision was far safer for the Azeri than the Frenchman. For the Azeri player, this meant a tie for first or second at worse, and having shared first in Sharjah, meant he would be one of the leaders, if not *the* leader to qualify for the Candidates. Remember only two will qualify from the cycle. In the previous one, Caruana and Topalov had been the best overall performers. Furthermore, and not to be spurned, it also meant he will appear in the next ratings list with a nice round 2800 rating. For the Frenchman, things are far more precarious as a result of his 16-move draw, though in all fairness, he must have thought the chances of Ding Liren not only getting chances to play for a win, but to actually win his last round with black were slim to say the least. However, never say never....

Boris Gelfand vs Ding Liren (annotated by GM Alex Lenderman)

What made this result possible was that Boris Gelfand decided he could try and play for a share of first if he won, which would greatly promote his chances to be one of the qualifiers should he succeed. The massive share of 3rd place he faced otherwise, would probably leave him in the middle of No Man's Land, since all the GP points would be split evenly. This suited Ding Liren just fine needless to say, who has shown none of the reticence to make each and every game a fight to the death.

There is no question it was a disappointing tournament for Pentala Harikrishna, who had hoped to become the second Indian to qualify for the Candidates. However, the way things stand, he will need a not-so-small miracle for that to happen. At least via the FIDE Grand Prix. As to Moscow, he suffered quite a bit, saving some difficult games, and losing a couple, only to claw his way back to 50% by the end.

Hou Yifan showed great grit from end to end as she fought all her games. The last round was no exception and she took the fight to Ernesto Inarkiev with black, who didn 't seem to give her enough credit and finally blundered and lost.

Ernesto Inarkiev vs Hou Yifan

This placed Hou Yifan at 5.0/9 and a plus one score in an elite male tournament, something not seen since Judit Polgar. In fact, this also put her at 6th in the overall FIDE GP standings at the moment.

FIDE Grand Prix standings

If things are very unclear for players such as MVL and Grischuk, who trail the leaders, Hikaru Nakamura is quite probably already out of the race in the Grand Prix. Even if he were to win the final Grand Prix outright and earn the maximum 170 points, it will barely place him above the two current leaders, and then both of them would need to also bomb in a big way. He can still make it via the World Cup, or via some wild card. One thing is certain: the Candidates will be much the poorer if he is not in it.

Anish Giri is in miuch the same situation as...

... Peter Svidler, who need big results in both of the final two Grand Prix events to have a chance of knocking off one of the others from their perch.

Leader of the FIDE Grand Prix and 2800, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has plenty to smile about

As to Ding Liren, his epic last-round win was the stuff of champions

The post-event cocktail

Final standings

Links

• Official tournament site
• All games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)

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