Tashkent 08: Georgian Magic

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 Eight

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Gelfand, Boris 0-1 Jobava, Baadur
Jobava, as could be predicted, used an unpredictable opening. The e6/b6 set-up is not so uncommon but it is still rare guest at the top level. Jobava got squashed against So earlier this year with it, so surely he had a new idea against 5.Kf1!? but Gelfand decided to use another variation all together. His early aggression backfired badly as the g-file fell into Black's hands. Jobava kept applying pressure and putting his pieces in good squares while all of White's camp looked awkward until it, unsurprisingly, collapsed.

Karlovich, Jobava and Gelfand in the postmortem

Andreikin, Dmitry ½-½ Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
Andreikin tried to come up with a new idea in the Grunfeld, but this doesn't always work against MVL. The Frenchman was simply very well prepared and sacrificed two pawns. Andreikin thought it would be too risky to take the second one and forced a perpetual instead, probably a good practical decision.

The face most people make when you try to crack MVL's Grunfeld. Or any opening.

Giri, Anish ½-½ Jakovenko, Dmitry
Jakovenko successfully followed an idea of Nisipeanu. In this variation of the English he sacrificed a queen for a rook, a pawn and a bishop. This also allowed him to set-up an impregnable position. Giri tried maneuvring around it, trying to find a chink in the armor, but it was of no use.

Jakovenko's preparation gave him a fortress out of the opening

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
A very, very entertaining game. Karjakin came up with a new idea to combat the Saemisch Nimzo-Indian based on a dark-square strategy. Both sides kept trying to sacrifice pawns to gain strategical advantages... while the opponent just ignored them!

Eventually Mamedyarov sacrificed two pieces for a rook, giving two connected passed pawns. Karjakin successfully stopped them, but his king became exposed after a further exchange sacrifice. Just when Mamedyarov's attack seemed as if it would crash through a miraculous knight interposition saved the day for Karjakin and forced the draw!

These guys played the game of the day

Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½ Radjabov, Teimour
Even though White forced his opponent to have an isolated pawn in the endgame, it was Nakamura that had to be careful not to be worse. Radjabov never had any real chances to do anything, however, and the draw was a logical conclusion.

Draw after draw Nakamura still shares the lead

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Kasimdzhanov, Rustam
Caruana handled this symmetrical position quite badly, and he was almost worse. His tactical solution barely worked; he lost a pawn but because of the opposite colored bishops he had good chances to hold. Kasimdzhanov could have tried harder, but to be fair the game would have probably ended in a draw anyway.

Caruana has not been as convincing in the opening, or in
any part of the game, as in his last three events

Photos by Yulia Manakova from the official website

Standings

Round Eight 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.