Paris 08: Planet Ivanchuk

Sixth FIDE Grand Prix - Paris 2013

The sixth and final Grand Prix of the system is taking place at the Chapelle de la Villedieu, founded in 1180 by soldier-monks of the Order of the Temple. The playing site is considerably west of Paris. The tournament will determine the last qualifiers for the Candidates tournament for the next World Chess Championship cycle. This leg of the series is being played under classical time controls: Time control: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, and then each player gets 15 minutes and an increment of 30 seconds per move after the second time control). No draws offers: Sofia rules!

Round 8

Wang Hao ½-½ Dominguez Perez, Leinier
Wang Hao found himself in trouble on the white side of a Catalan today as his d-pawn came under heavy pressure. His Cuban opponent was able to win it with a timely c5 break and Black held an indisputable advantage. The Chinese created counterplay down the b-file with a creative rook lift, but it was not enough to equalize. What it was enough for was to confuse his opponent in time pressure, and Dominguez agreed to a threefold repetition in a position where he was clearly better.

Dominguez was too solid and gave a draw in an arguably much better position

Grischuk is back to 50% but far from a qualification spot to the Candidate's.
He and Caruana are the only ones with any hope of still qualifying.

Grischuk, Alexander 1-0 Giri, Anish
In this somewhat strange English opening Grischuk decided to quickly trade queens to cripple his opponent's pawn structure. Giri seemed to have an ok position until he traded his bishop for a knight on f3, which made his own knight on g6 much worse because of the lack of access to e5. From then on White had a pleasant advantage that kept growing until he reached a double rook endgame that was clearly favorable to him. Grischuk converted with flawless technique in an endgame that Giri had simply no activity.

"That chair actually looks pretty comfortable" - Giri had a tough time today and was the first person to lose

Someone got an edge against Tomashevsky from the opening? Not even Fressinet can believe it

Fressinet, Laurent ½-½ Tomashevsky, Evgeny
Tomashevsky decided to use the same line that brought him an easy draw in the Tromso World Cup in round one. Fressinet didn't really prove any real improvement, but through some inaccuracies of the Russian he was able to obtain the a-file for his rook and a little bit of pressure. In time trouble Tomashevsky allowed his opponent to set up perfectly and after White's 41.b4! he was suddenly in real trouble as his structure was collapsing. However the Russian held his defenses and survived a long draw that took many, many horus and 96 moves...

Tomashevsky suffered for a long time, but he maintains his perfect record of all draws

Ponomariov, Ruslan 0-1 Bacrot, Etienne
The Catalan move order was created with the intention of avoiding, among other things, the Queen's Indian defense; however because of the committal of playing g3 so early many players take this opportunity to transpose the game into Benoni waters since White will have no choice but to play the fianchetto variation, probably not the most dangerous variation at the moment. Bacrot quickly sacrificed a pawn in the spirit of the Benko and he obtained excellent counterplay for it. White's pieces were far from being coordinated and his weak b-pawn was an easy target. After winning this pawn he held a clear advantage; he traded his passed c-pawn and a rook for two minor pieces which left him in a technically won endgame that he converted nicely.

Swift and powerful: Bacrot outplayed Ponomariov without problems using the black pieces

Planet Ivanchuk effect: The Ukrainian flagged in a drawn position

Ivanchuk, Vassily 0-1 Nakamura, Hikaru
Despite obtaining equality from the opening, Nakamura found himself in some difficulties during the middle-game. His exposed pawn structure was pressure by many of White's pieces and his space advantage was nullified by the lack of pawns on the queenside and the relatively low number of pieces on the board. White had many chances to pressure his opponent, but between Nakamura's resourceful defense and Ivanchuk's lack of patience Black obtained equality by temporarily sacrificing a pawn. In a position that was almost surely going to be drawn Ivanchuk... flagged! It cannot be explained why he flagged, but he did, and Nakamura leads the event.

Nakamura is but a point away from the World #3 ranking; one more win would displace Aronian from this spot

Caruana, Fabiano 1-0 Gelfand, Boris
Caruana played an unusual line of the Rossolimo but he got some initiative out of the opening. This kept growing until White's powerful knight on d5 give him a clear advantage. Gelfand fought back by sacrificing material and exposing White's king, but it was to no avail; White's position held as his major pieces protected his king from afar while his pawns kept pushing and his material advantage kept increasing. A very important result for the tournament!

Gelfand loses an important game and is now tied in second with...

his executioner! Caruana still has hopes of making the Candidate's Tournament

Standings

Replay round eight games

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Schedule

The games start at 15:00h European time, 17:00h Moscow, 9 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here.

Links Official tournament site 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.