Tashkent R8: Leko beats Kamsky, Karjakin and Caruana lead

The second stage of the 2012-2013 FIDE Grand Prix Series is taking place from November 21 to December 5th in the Gallery of Fine Art in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The games start at 14:00h local time (= 10:00h CET, 13:00h Moscow, 04:00 a.m. New York). The tournament has a prize fund of 240,000 Euros.

Round eight report

Kamsky-Leko 0-1: In a Nimzo Indian with 4.e3 Peter Leko (above) went for a solid line. Gata Kamsky appeared to be very well prepared, as he played his next few moves quite quickly. Peter tried to avoid forced lines and seemed to have solved his opening problems after 13...Bxd4 14.exd5 Ng6. Kamsky didn't feel the critical moment, continued to play in ambitious way. Black got a huge advantage in the endgame, which he converted after avioding any stalemate traps.

Commentary by GM Alejandro Ramirez

Fourth loss in this tournament: Gata Kamsky, USA

Svidler-Kazimdzhanov 1/2-1/2: Peter Svidler (above) decided not to compete with Rustam Kasimdzhanov's Marshal or Anti-Marshal preparation and played 1.Nf3 instead. But even in the Reti Kazimdzanov seems to have his own opinion on what to do! Peter was blaming himself after the game for 10.Qc2, as the logical follow-up to this move, 11.e4, didn't actually happen in the game, as it seemed to be too risky. Black equalized easily after the precise 17...Bc3 and 18...d4, and the position when they started to repeat moves doesn't offer real chances to win for either side.

Gelfand-Dominguez 1/2-1/2: Once again Lenier Dominguez (above) changed his opening on 1.d4 and this time he went for King's Indian. Boris Gelfand (below) played one of his main systems, 9.Nd2 in the so-called Classical Variation, and was immediately surprised by 9...c6, as the line with 9...a5 is much more common.

It's really hard to suggest anything concrete for White, as his play seemed logical, but after the precise 16...Bf6 he failed to get any advantage. Later on Black got comfortable play and could have tried to gain some initiative after 24…Rc7, proposed by Boris Gelfand during the press conference. A sequence of forced moves after 28. h4 h5 finally lead to perpetual check.

Morozevich-Wang Hao 1/2-1/2: Once again an Exchange Slav was played by Alexander Morozevich (above), as in the exciting game against Mamedyarov, which also started with this "boring" line. The Russian player managed to get an interesting position after Wang Hao's inaccurate 12...Bg6, but failed to convert White's positional pressure into something concrete. 25.Nc3 might be the one of the possible improvements of White's play. White's chances to fight for a win seem problematic, after the rooks had all left the board. Black is just in time to exchange queenside pawns with 38...b6. Right after a time control a draw was agreed.

With 50% in place nine: top Chinese GM Wang Hao

Mamedyarov-Ponomariov 1/2-1/2: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (above) and Ruslan Ponomariov were first to finish their game after roughly two hours of play. The Ukrainian grandmaster used to play Queens Gambit Accepted, so Shahriyar was ready for it and decided to play the most principal line with 3.e4. As the Azeri player explained during the press conference, he was not familiar with Ruslan's 12...Nxe3, which recently happened in the game Tomashevsky-Romanov, Eilat 2012. 16.Qb3+ was already a novelty, as the abovementioned game continued with 16.a4. White's play looked logical, but Mamedyarov did not get any advantage. In order to complicate matters he decided to sacrifice an exchange by simply leaving his rook under attack by the opponents knight after 21.Ne2. Instead of accepting the sacrifice, which looks quite dubious according to chess engines, Ponomariov (below) found a way to repeat the moves, and White had no convenient way to resist a draw.

Caruana-Karjakin 1/2-1/2: In the game of the two leaders in this event a Catalan Opening was played. Sergey Karjakin went for one of the most solid lines, 6...dxc4, where White cannot hope for more than just a slight edge. Fabiano Caruana's 11.Nh4, which seems to be a novelty, failed to prove the opposite, as after some natural moves Black got reasonable play. Both players agreed after the game that all Black’s problems were solved after 18...Ne4. However, it was never too late to fall into a trap on the 25th move...

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Standings after eight rounds

Summaries from the official web site, photos by Anastasiya Karlovich

Schedule and results

Video Reports

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