FIDE Grand Prix in Palma: A promising start

The capitol city of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean off the Spanish Coast has hosted many great chess tournaments in the past. A traditional tournament was held there every year in the late 1960's, and the 1970 Interzonal saw a great triumph by R.J. Fischer on his way to the World Championship title.

This year Palma de Mallorca is hosting the fourth and final stage of the 2017 FIDE Grand Prix series. 18 grandmasters will contest a nine-round Swiss tournament, but only two of them have a whole lot to play for.

The 18 players who will play in Palma | Photo: Agon

As Spain's number one player, Francisco Vallejo Pons is understadnably the center of the local Spanish media | Photo: Agon

As seen from the Grand Prix standings below, the two leaders in the race for the two remaining spots in the Candidates are both done with their participation. There are three guys still in contention, each of whom can overtake the leaders (or just Grischuk) with a good result in this final tournament. The thing is, Ding Liren no longer needs a qualification spot thanks to his second place finish in the World Cup, which leaves only Teimour Radjabov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the race.

Two players who do not need the qualification spots: Ding Liren and Levon Aronian, both of whom earned their spots in the Candidates from the World Cup | Photo: AGON

What do those two need to do? Let's look once again at the Grand Prix regulations and the prize and point distribution.

We can see now that Radjabov, who needs 95.1 points to finish ahead of Grischuk, would, for example,  be just fine with finishing in a three way tie for third place, as that would give him 93.33 points. However, a four-way tie of equal 3-6 would only nets 87.25 points, which would leave Teimour out. This is how fickle it can get: one more guy wins in the last round, catches up with the 3rd place finishers, and that's it, someone else goes to Berlin for the Candidates.

Vachier-Lagrave needs to do even better than that. With a shared 2nd-3rd Maxime would get 125 points, exactly matching Grischuk's total tally. In this case tiebreak criteria would decide. And the first two tiebreaks are:

• Number of actual game result points scored in the three tournaments entered
• Number of games played with black

Perhaps, it could be useful to analyze the final standings of the previous three stages to get some kind of idea what score would be needed for Teimour and Maxime. 6.0/9 won it outright twice, in Moscow and Geneva, while Sharjah saw a three way tie for first with 5.5. I'll dare a guess, that 5.5/9 should be enough for Radjabov, but the same score may not write MVL's ticket.

Anyway, we'll be juggling those numbers as the tournament goes along. For now let's see how it started. There were six draws in the opening round, some of which were quite uneventful.

It's understandable that Ding Liren took his first game rather easy. Let's not forget that Ding just barely made it to Palma in time, as he was busy in St. Louis until Tuesday night. I do, however, believe that despite the absence of qualification concerns this is a very important event for the Chinese player who suddenly finds himself in a dire need of redemption in the aftermath of the horrible beat-down he received at the hands of Magnus Carlsen.

Radjabov made a very short draw today with White against the second-lowest rated player in the tournament. Clearly, Teimour intends to stay on the side of caution, at least for as long as the tournament situation allows it.

After his game, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is interviewed by Anastasia Karlovich | Photo: Agon

Vachier-Lagrave is another story, It goes without saying that the 2017 Sinquefield Cup Champion is not going to hold back in Palma. Maxime will play every game to win. He got off a great start winning rather easily against Boris Gelfand.

I don't know if I'm qualified to question Boris Gelfand's opening choices, but this whole line seems depressing. Black gives a pawn and tries to make a draw, how much fun is that? MVL has demonstrated his willingness to take the smallest of advantages out of his Anti-Berlin and Marshall lines and work it into full points. Today he got the position he expected to see, and cashed in without a hitch.

The Accelerated Dragon by Nigel Davies

The Accelerated Dragon is much more than just a dynamic yet solid means of countering 1.e4. By knowing how to counter the Maroczy Bind Black can counter both the English and Reti Openings and even develop the basis of a defence against 1.d4.

Whilst having been used extensively by superstars such as Bent Larsen and Tigran Petrosian, Davies argues that the Accelerated Dragon is an even more effective proposition for club players. As he explains on this DVD, many White players are under the mistaken impression that the positions are like a regular Sicilian Dragon. And if this is the case they can find himself being demolished right out of the opening.

Li Chao was definitely not as his best (understatement of the year), and did not offer much resistance to Ernesto Inarkiev. The Russian did wrap it up in style though. | Photo: Agon

Li Chao showed that it was possible to play worse that Gelfand did today. His treatment of the Grunfeld was plain atrocious.  I can imagine a quizzical look on Peter Svidler's face as he must have stopped once or twice to take a look at that game.

Not the most difficult day in the office for Ernesto Inarkiev, but he gets credit for a smooth game.

My best games in the Grünfeld by Alexei Shirov

The Gruenfeld Defense is an active and dynamic reply to 1.d4 which can lead to complex and extremely sharp positions. So it’s no wonder that also Alexei Shirov included this opening into his repertoire. At the candidates’ final against Vladimir Kramnik in Cazorla in 1998, he exclusively – and successfully – trusted the Gruenfeld Indian with Black; the victory over Kramnik gave him the right to play a WCh match versus Kasparov.

Another winner today was Anish Giri, who had to work hard to overcome the ever-resourceful Richard Rapport. What I like the most about this game was the finish.

Anish is working on fixing some issues that plagued his game in the past couple of years. I think he will fight hard to win his confidence back, along with a few rating points.

Anish Giri chose the prettiest way to win, and certainly gets brownie points for the effort | Photo: Agon

I think it would be wrong to suspect the players with no qualification tasks to address would just go through the motions. They are proud individuals who always try their best, so let's not write this tournament off as an afterthought in the 2017 calendar. If anything, I expect to see very interesting chess played in Palma!

All games (Round 1)

Links

• Official tournament site