FIDE Grand Prix - Geneva: Salem and Rapport steal the spotlight

The Grand Prix is being organized by Agon Limited, the commercial partner of the World Chess Federation, the game’s governing body. Agon has the exclusive commercial rights to organize the cycle of the World Championship.

Each Grand Prix has a prize fund of 130,000 euros, and the Geneva Grand Prix is supported by EG Capital Advisors, Kaspersky Lab and S.T. Dupont.

Twenty-four of the world’s best players are competing in the Grand Prix, with 18 of them participating in each of the tournaments. They will play a nine round swiss open played at 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

The tournament runs from June 6-15, with a rest day on June 11 after round five. Each round starts at 2 pm local time (8 am New York time).

Round four

Photos by World Chess

The very top games between Teimour Radjabov and Pentala Harikrishna, or Alexander Grischuk against Levon Aronian, barely got out of the opening before their fates were decided. This isn’t to say that the players went for an ultra short game, but the situation after really left little doubt as to the result that would come.

Radjabov is checked for electronic devices, extra pawns, or anything that might give him an unfair advantage

Enjoying some friendly banter before the hostilities

If any game were to be described as having an impact on the leaderboard, it would have to be Peter Svidler’s win over Michael Adams. Adams, playing black, went astray fairly quickly out of the gate in a Queen’s Gambit Declined. He got stuck with an isolani without the benefits some such positions offer in compensation, and the pawn went down. Svidler worked this into a winning endgame in which he was not only up a pawn but enjoyed the bishop pair versus knight and bishop as well. With his win, Svidler moved into the pack with 2.5/4, making him a clearer contender for one of the top spots.

An important win for Peter Svidler, who now moves into the group just behind the leader

This corridor just before the playing area is littered with art-deco chairs and tables, all with chessboards for the use

Passersby and the players themsleves have made ample use of them

S.T. Dupont is one of the main sponsors and their luxurt products can be seen on display throughout the venue. Their pens were used by Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen during the World Championship match in New York.

Ian Nepomniachtchi overcame Hou Yifan in a sideline of the Berlin, with no queens exchanged, after a small bluff in which he left a pawn on b2 hanging. Hou chose not to take, but in fact this was a mistake as it represented her best chance. Upon first glance it might have seemed the knight could not escape, but a small precise line would let it out and give her the pawn. Instead, things went downhill thereafter, and the Russian built up a massive attack that he took to fruition. For Nepomniachtchi it was a welcome return to 50%, but for Hou it had to be frustrating after having had two very promising positions in earlier games yield nothing, to find herself on a negative score instead.

Under that sweet-looking demeanor and smile is a highly motivated competitor

The game of the day was without question the great battle between Saleh Salem and Richard Rapport. Both players had suffered very poor starts, and were eager to put that behind them and make a go for it. As both are also very imaginative and dynamic players, it was no surprise the game was as interesting as it was. Enjoy it with the detailed analysis by GM Alexandr Fier.

Saleh Salem - Richard Rapport (annotated by GM Alexandr Fier)

Standings after four rounds

Links

• Official tournament site
• All games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)

You can use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.