Tashkent 04: Back to Peace

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 Four

ChessBase will be bringing in GMs Simon Williams and Daniel King to provide live commentary on Playchess for all Premium subscribers. If you are not already a Premium member, you can become one here or alternately, packages such as Komodo 8 come with a 6-month Premium subscription included.

Don't Miss Danny King's commentary on the Playchess.com server tomorrow!

Gelfand, Boris ½-½ Jakovenko, Dmitry
Following a recent game between Grischuk and Nakamura from the European Club Cup, both players reached a position that should be very close to equal. Nothing new was really added to the table, the players simplified to a draw in a known way.

"Oh no, I'm down a full tempo!" actually Jakovenko had no problems holding a draw to day

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
MVL's set-up against the QID paid off some dividends. He obtained some pressure against Black's position, but Karjakin struck back with an interesting pawn sacrifice. Actually, Black's only compensation for the pawn was that he could blockade the queenside majority of his opponent and after simplifying into an opposite colored bishop endgame MVL ran out of ideas on how to try to make progress.

Karjakin taking a little stroll during the game

MVL tried to put some presssure, but he got neutralized

Jobava, Baadur ½-½ Radjabov, Teimour
In a sharp-looking Grunfeld Jobava did not retain his extra pawn in order to secure his development. This gave Black enough time to consolidate his own position. After some natural exchanges the game reduced to pawns on the same flank, which was drawn even though Radjabov decided to sacrifice one pawn at some point.

Jobava's openings are always unusual, today he met good prep in the Grunfeld

Andreikin, Dmitry ½-½ Kasimdzhanov, Rustam
The players successfully found a way to make a repetition starting on move 19.

Andreikin rarely says no to a draw in an equal position

Giri, Anish ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
The Italian player neutralized Giri's attempts to create any advantage in this Catalan variation with an early Nc3 (reached by transposition). Giri tried to create something but wasn't able to.

Giri quietly gains places in the World Rankings. He is currently 7th,
ahead of Karjakin and Nakamura, according to the live list.

Caruana is solid with Black, not letting his current -1 score get to him

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar ½-½ Nakamura, Hikaru
By far the most interesting game of the day. A clash in one of the aggressive ways of meeting the Orthodox with a quick kingside expansion led to Mamedyarov sacrificing material early in the game. Nakamura returned it and sacrificed his own pawn to keep his king safe and for counter-chances against White's kingside. Eventually White had the opportunity to maybe gain a slight edge with some crazy king maneuvers, but this was left off the board. In the continuation played in the game Mamedyarov sacrificed an exchange for two powerful pawns, but it was not enough to see them through. A fun draw.

By far, far and away the most exciting game to watch

Daniel King analyses the game Mamedyarov - Nakamura

Photos by Anastasiya Karlovich from the official website

Standings

Round Four 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.