Three White victories in Thessaloniki... again!

From May 22 to June 03, 2013, the fourth stage of the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2012-2013 is taking place in Thessaloniki, Greece. Twelve players are competing in a round robin tournament with time controls of 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes and an increment of 30 seconds per move for each player. The Grand Prix Series consists of six tournaments to be held over two years, with 18 top players, each participating in four of the six tournaments. The winner and second placed player overall of the Grand Prix Series will qualify for the Candidates Tournament to be held in March 2014.

Round two report

Bacrot's openings haven't lived up to standard - his expressions show that he knows it.

Bacrot, Etienne - Kasimdzhanov, Rustam ½-½
A relatively boring Gruenfeld forced Bacrot to exchange more pieces than he wanted and Black obtained an easy draw. Bacrot's openings in rounds one and two have left much to be desired, and he will have to improve drastically if he wants to score full points. Maybe this is due to his last minute replacement of Radjabov?

Dominguez is in the typical meditative pose of "oh god how did my preparation go?!".

Dominguez Perez, Leinier - Ponomariov, Ruslan ½-½
In one of the most questionable three move repetitions seen in recent times, Ponomariov "forced" Dominguez to accept a draw in what was already a very equal position nonetheless.

Topalov, Veselin - Kamsky, Gata ½-½
Kamsky is known to be an expert in the solid systems that involve c6/d5 and a kingside fianchetto against pretty much any version of 1. d4. This game was no exception and again White couldn't prove anything special against the setup. Kamsky equalized and never let Topalov take any sort of advantage throughout the game.was

Kamsky and Topalov had an interesting post-mortem, but they never found a real advantage for either side.

Morozevich, Alexander - Svidler, Peter 1-0
Just as Svidler demolished Bacrot in a miniature, today he is on the receiving end! In what can only be described as a bizarre game, probably because it was played by Morozevich, both sides had completed a fair amount of anti-development by move 14. Precisely on this move Svidler decided to launch an all-in attack against Morozevich's king, which was never in any real danger. Moro's b5 pawn took on c6, b7 and a8 and promoted to a queen after which Svidler simply resigned.

Ivanchuk joins the group as the third person not happy with his opening.

Caruana, Fabiano - Ivanchuk, Vassily 1-0
Caruana sacrificed an exchange for a pawn and an impressive knight on d5, which gave him chances for an advantage. White's light square control was accentuated move by move and Black had to give back another pawn to clear the strong knight. The endgame was far from hopeless for Ivanchuk, but it was still quite difficult. Caruana slowly advanced his pawns and Black simply didn't figure out how to stop them.

Grischuk, Alexander - Nakamura, Hikaru 1-0
Black shed two pawns early in this opening to obtain good positional pressure against White's crippled pawn structure and weak king. Grischuk had the pair of bishops and seemingly dominated his opponent's position, but the pawns were simply too weak. He gave one back and started torturing Nakamura, who had little to do but sit down and defend. After Grischuk won another pawn the task became harder for Black, but maybe not impossible. His last chance might have been 70...Ra5 trying to keep the White king out of play, since once it entered the game effectively Grischuk cruised to victory.

All pictures by Anastasiya Karlovich

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Schedule

The games start at 14:00h Eastern European Summer time, 15:00h Moscow,
7 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here.

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.