FIDE Grand Prix - Geneva: Will all-star cast lead to masterpiece?

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 one

It has been three days since Leuven. I trust you all are well rested and eager to follow more top level chess. This summer's schedule accommodates your wishes, as the third leg of the 2017 FIDE Grand Prix started today. Let's see what we have.

Levon Aronian draws his pairing number | Photo: FIDE

As the top seed, with 2808 FIDE, Levon Aronian did the honors of drawing the color and thus determining the pairings. Note that he is not the only 2800 player in the event as there is also Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who has done incredibly well so far, winning one, and runner-up in the second.

Grand Prix points in bold indicate a tournament win.

FIDE Grand Prix standings

Obviously, we are keeping tabs on the players indicated by a (P). Of those, with all due respect, I will discount the ones with only a theoretical chance, such as Hou Yifan, Miachael Adams, and Ian Nepomniachtchi. They're playing their third and last event in Geneva, and should any of them win it — 170 GP points are awarded — the total haul would still be short of Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's and just a few points ahead of Ding Liren's. Sorry guys, your ship has already sailed.

Looking at the results of previous tournaments, I'd hazard a guess that a “normal” +1 result is worth about 70 points. Both Shak and Ding are more than good enough to expect at least that from their remaining appearance, therefore bringing their total to about 310 points. Of course, either of them can bomb out, but it's unlikely. At least their competition cannot count on that.

So, assuming they don't, it leaves the rest with the goal of 310+ points total, which means having to win tournaments. Clearly, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Grischuk and Hikaru Nakamura are quite capable of doing that. That said, Hikaru's qualification isn't guaranteed even in that case, but with the total of 311 he will have a chance.

Alexander Grischuk is still very much in contention for one of the two qualifying spots, though he needs a great result, if not an outright win. Ernesto Inarkiev is a long shot, though theoretically possible. | Photo: FIDE

The next three contenders are Anish Giri, Peter Svidler, Teimour Radjabov and Dmitry Jakovenko. Points-wise they didn't do so badly in their only appearance so far, but there's a lot of work to do. Neither one of those is known for winning tournaments outright, at least not lately; but Giri's recent play in Norway and Leuven gave his supporters hope.

Anish Giri - Teimour Radjabov

A serious blow to Anish's chances, and a great start for Teimour.

Down the list again. For Eljanov, Li Chao, Rapport, Harikrishna, Gelfand, Aronian, Inarkiev and Riazantsev, their first tournament didn't go well. Scoring less than 70 points from any individual event leaves them with “must wins” in the remaining two. Tough, but Levon is Levon, so I can't write him off until he's mathematically eliminated.

Levon Aronian had to sweat quite a bit, but in the end he saved the half-point against Li Chao. Note that Li Chao was a top scorer for the Chinese team in Khanty-Mansiysk at the World Team Championship. | Photo: FIDE

Aronian was in a spot of trouble today, and should consider himself lucky to be able to split the point.

Levon Aronian - Li Chao

World Championship qualifications aside, there are always going to be some interesting games. Below is the one I like the most. I find the endgame instructive.

Hou Yifan and Pavel Eljanov played an instructive endgame | Photo: FIDE

Pavel Eljanov - Hou Yifan

Pentala Harikrishna signed one of the wins of the day as he defeated Alexander Riazantsev | Photo: FIDE

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.