Tashkent 07: Much needed air

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 Seven

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Caruana, Fabiano 1-0 Gelfand, Boris
Gelfand obtained a good position from the opening. The strategically complex position pitched a good position from Black with a nice amount of space against White's pressure against b7. Gelfand went wrong somewhere and underestimated a capture on c5. Despite how obviously weak this pawn was on c5, it was almost impossible to take it!

Caruana scores his first win of the event, putting him at 50%

Caruana nursed his advantage and a further mistake by the Israeli left Black in a queen and rook endgame that was simply hopeless.

Meanwhile Gelfand shares the bottom position with Kasimdzhanov

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam ½-½ Nakamura, Hikaru
A struggle in the Dutch. Both sides had difficulties executing their plans, until Kasimdzhanov traded off his dark-squared bishop for Nakamura's knight on c5. The Uzbekistani player went pawn hunting on the queenside while Black expanded on the kingside for a fierce attack. Kasdimzhanov had it under control, but Black's activity was sufficient when rather suddenly they agreed to a draw.

The start of a strange and sharp game

Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
A predictable draw. This time they just traded off all the pieces into a drawn opposite colored bishop endgame.

The Radjabov-Mamedyarov duels are not hard to predict

Karjakin, Sergey 1-0 Giri, Anish
A brutal affair in the Paulsen Sicilian. Using a very are line Karjakin got the opening advantage with much superior development and sacrificial chances to expose the opponent's king. Karjakin did not fully take advantage of his resources and somehow Giri escaped being down only a pawn. However, almost immediately, he became too optimistic of his position, blundered an exchange and lost.

Karjakin scored a much needed win after two losses

Firuza Kasimdzhanova, Sergey Karjakin, Galina Karyakina, and Rustam Kasimdzhanov

Jakovenko, Dmitry ½-½ Andreikin, Dmitry
The Dmitrys played over 20 moves of a game that Jakovenko had against Onischuk last year (except Jakovenko was black in that game) and after some trades the game was drawn.

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime ½-½ Jobava, Baadur
Leave it up to Jobava to mix it up! His unusual expansion on the kingside was maybe not completely unsound, but if that was not enough he sacrificed a piece for no apparent reason! He obtained one pawn, an open g-file and some pressure against d4. MVL might have kept all his advantages had he defended perfectly, but that was hard to do.

"What is he doing?!" must be the reaction of every
player that has ever played against Jobava

In the game MVL returned two pawns to reach an endgame in which his piece was worth more than the opponent's pawns. He kept ramping his resources until Jobava had a lot of trouble holding his position together. When the time was right to play a winning combination, MVL missed it and he let Jobava escape with a draw.

Old friends: Jobava and Mamedyarov

Photos by Yulia Manakova and Anastasiya Karlovich from the official website

Standings

Round Seven Games

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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.