Tashkent 01: Anything but boring

The second stage of the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix is taking place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The tournament will run from October 20th to November 3rd, 2014. Some of the strongest players in the world will compete in a Round Robin event. The winner and runner-up of the Grand Prix series will earn their spot at the 2016 Candidate's Tournament.

Round One

Giri, Anish ½-½ Gelfand, Boris
Gelfand keeps showing good preparation everywhere... this time in a Benoni! His powerful opening almost left him better, but Giri pulled the breaks just in time to paralyze the position with a pawn sacrifice and keep the game completely locked and level.

Giri was not exactly thrilled when his opponent blitzed out what was clearly some dangerous preparation

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 0-1 Andreikin, Dmitry
A rather strange game. Andreikin was fine from the opening, but underestimated how weak his d-pawn was. After losing it he entered a worse rook endgame, simply down a pawn but with excellent drawing chances. Then, in time pressure, Mamedyarov imploded and he panicked. Andreikin played precise moves to take advantage of the situation and his passed pawns proved more powerful than his opponent's.

Mamedyarov did something very unusual: he lost a pawn up endgame!

Nakamura, Hikaru 1-0 Jobava, Baadur
The American's opening was good enough for a slight advantage; Jobava tried to complicate things with a mistimed knight maneuver. Nakamura powerfully broke through the center and the Georgian tried to further muddy the waters with a knight sacrifice. Nakamura's precise calculation precisely thwarted the treats and he ended up a rook in a position that was still not 100% clear, but definitely favoring him. Jobava made it easier on him with a bad queen trade and Nakamura took the full point.

Nakamura's precise moves stopped any tactical counterplay from Jobava

Caruana, Fabiano 0-1 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
MVL's understanding of the Najdorf is just superb. It is not just his opening theory, but he knows precisely when to accept a pawn sacrifice and when to return it, and how to continue the game. His precisely timed counter-sacrifice gave him a great amount of activity. He was able to get back his material and even reap some benefits. He converted his advantage in a winning opposite colored bishop endgame. A nice birthday present for himself!

MVL turned 24 today!

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam ½-½ Jakovenko, Dmitry
Despite the recent popularity of this variation of the Berlin, it is hard to imagine White ever has too much of an advantage. White's pair of bishops was more symbolic than anything and Jakovenko drew without too many issues.

The FIDE president again doing the opening move on Kasimdzhanov's board

Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
Not a boring draw; Radjabov tried to create quick chances on the kingside by taking some risk, but Karjakin was never willing to enter into complicated waters. He kept trying to drag the position back into safety, and he eventually succeeded into forcing a draw.

Karjakin will always be happy with a draw with black

Giri analyzing his game for the press conference... which was watched by no one. For some reason there is no live transmission from Tashkent. No video, no live commentary. It is disappointing that a tournament of this level of importance and with such a caliber does not even have a commentary team that can be watched online at the official website.

Photos by Yulia Manakova from the official website

Round One Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Schedule

Links Official tournament site All Games in PGN 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.