Beijing Rd8: Gelfand, Topalov score

The fifth stage of the FIDE Grand Prix Series is taking place between the 3rd and 17th of July 2013 on the premises of the Chinese Chess Association in Beijing. The time controls are 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move 61 onwards. The games start at 3 p.m. local time, except the last round. The Grand Prix Series consists of six tournaments to be held over two years (2012-2013). 18 top players participate in four of these 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.

Karjakin, Sergey - Topalov, Veselin 0-1
Karjakin played this Paulsen in a very strange way. He never really got his kingside attack rolling and Topalov was able to estabilsh a permanent advantage. Karjakin was holding on, but on move 40 he committed a blunder that allowed Topalov to establish a winning position with his two connected passed pawns.

Topalov won with Black and Karjakin is 0/3 in the last three games.

Once again our express analysis comes from GM Alexander Ipatov from Turkey, 
a bungy-jumping adventurer whom you can follow his blog at http://blog.alexipatov.com/.

Wang Yue - Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar ½-½
Mamedyarov's Gruenfeld was hardly put to the test in this game as Wang Yue quickly exchanged piecse and with a symmetrical pawn structure the players agreed to a draw.

Giri, Anish - Grischuk, Alexander ½-½
Grischuk played a very precise game in this Scheveningen. White normally gets a serious attack on the kingside but through clever maneouvers he was able to neutralize all the threats and put White's attack out of commission. Giri forced massive simplifications that gave him no advantage in the resulting double rook endgame.

Morozevich, Alexander - Wang Hao
Morozevich banked on his outside passed pawn on the queenside to give him the advantage and potentially tie Black's pieces to stopping it from queening. However Wang Hao used his rook and queen successfully to stop Morozevich from creating any real threats and he simply could not make any progress.

Gelfand, Boris - Ivanchuk, Vassily 1-0
Ivanchuk had the unpleasant task of defending without space or counterplay in this King's Indian Defense. Gelfand managed to exchange just enough pieces that his b-file and attack on the weak d6 pawn were still more than just annoying. Ivanchuk resigned in a position in which he was about to lose d6, but arguably there was still some play left in that position.

Gelfand tortured Ivanchuk until the Ukrainian couldn't take the pressure

Leko, Peter - Kamsky, Gata ½-½
Despite losing a pawn early on, Kamsky was able to retain counterplay due to his very active rooks on the open file. Leko tried to create some counterplay with his own rooks but that came at the cost of his material advantage. At the end material evend out and neither side could play for a win.

Information and pictures by FIDE press chief WGM Anastasiya Karlovich

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