Tbilisi Rd8: Jobava, Tomashevsky victorious

The third stage of the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix is taking place in Tbilisi, Georgia. The tournament will run from February 14th to February 28, 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

Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
For the second game in a row Mamedyarov put his trust on the Cambridge Springs, despite obtaining a sketchy position from the opening yesterday against Grischuk. Radjabov was not as successful with his white play, obtaining no more than the slightest of edges against his opponent. White's structural advantage in the center was completely offset by the pair of bishops and breaking possibilities of Black. Radjabov saw the opportunity for a cute sequence to force a perpetual and he took it.

The head arbiter reminding Mamedyarov that there is a draw rule in effect...

which is conveniently circumvented by repetition of moves, or perpetual check

Giri, Anish ½-½ Grischuk, Alexander
A very uninteresting game when you consider that the first 28 moves had already been played in the Baku Grand Prix between Tomashevsky-Grsichuk. The "novelty" did not change the fact that the endgame is dead drawn.

Giri repeated a long line that was used in the last Grand Prix

"Hmmm.... this looks familiar

Dominguez, Leinier ½-½ Jakovenko, Dmitry
The Cuban was outplaying Jakovenko from the anti-Berlin, slowly making progress on the queenside that netted him a pawn. But, like yesterday, time pressure cost him half a point:

Svidler, Peter 0-1 Jobava, Baadur
Jobava wins his third game in this tournament, clearly recovering from a bad start. His game today against Svidler was a beautiful example of how to neutralize your opponent's seemingly dangerous initiative:

Never count Jobava out! Three wins recover him nicely from his early tournament losses.

Vahchier-Lagrave, Maxime 0-1 Tomashevsky, Evgeny
A crazy game! The following were all true:

-White had at, a point, a rook and four pawns against three minor pieces.

-Many moves later, that material balance were the only pieces remaining on the board

-Black took all of White's pawns.

-White was down "4 points of material" in the beginner's scale (rook vs. two bishops and a knight) but it wasn't clear that he was lost.

-The only difference between the starting position of the minor pieces vs. rook endgame was that Black pushed White's king to the side of the board, allowing his bishops to corral it into a mating net.

With this win Tomashevsky is winning a huge 24 points of win and has a full point ahead of Jakovenko. With his 82 points that he accumulated in Baku, if he wins this tournament he will have a great chance of qualifying for the Candidates in Khanty-Mansiysk, which is the final GP.

MVL was unable to hold the most unusual of material imbalances

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam ½-½ Andreikin, Dmitry
A solid but fought-out draw. The structural advantage that Kasimdzhanov enjoyed was simply too small to create real problems.

The players analysing with FIDE president officer Anastasiya Karlovich

Standings

Round Eight Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Photos from the official website by Maria Emelianova

Schedule

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.