Gibraltar: Artemiev is the man to beat

MVL and Yu and Karthikeyan give chase

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave took just 29 moves and less than 20 minutes on the clock to dispatch the co-leader after eight rounds Kirill Alekseenko in Round 9, putting him within striking distance of Vladislav Artemiev heading into the final round. Both players have the black pieces. It will be up to Yu Yangyi with White against Artemiev to try to put a stop to the Russian's impressive run. MVL faces the outsider Karthikeyan Murali who, at just 2570, was number 49 on the starting list and yet has a shot at the Gibraltar Masters title.

One of these four will win the Gibraltar Masters

Karthikeyan's clutch win against Maxim Matlakov in Round 9 means that the group of thirteen GMs with 6½ are mathematically eliminated from contention for a possible playoff.

Yu won his ninth round game against Le to reach top board in Round 10 | Photo: John Saunders

Let's take a look at the dramatic developments of the past two rounds:

In Round 8, David Navara and Kirill Alekseenko won their games against Nils Grandelius and Arkadij Naiditsch to pull equal with Artemiev at the top of the table. 

The Sicilian with 3.Bb5

The Rossolimo Variation of the Sicilian Defence (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5) is always an excellent choice with White if you want to avoid the deeply analysed main lines of the Open Sicilian. Alexei Shirov provides you with the requisite understanding of the opening's subtleties, by annotating extensively his most important games in this variation. During his career, he has played the 3.Bb5 system with both colours and he shares with you on this DVD his valuable experience.

The Czech ace Navara has been in good shape and has broken back into the top twenty in the world with his current performance in Gibraltar. Grandelius' loss was his first in the tournament. With the black pieces, Grandelius surprised his opponent with the Sicilian Defence — Navara expected 1...e5 and retaliated with 3.♗b5, which he decided upon only after a ten minute think. After 3...♞d7 Navara played the unusual move 4.♗a4, to give "Grandelius the opportunity to think". This tame surprise weapon has only entered grandmaster practice in the past 18 months.

In an interview with Tania Sachdev, David Navara reports in detail about the progress of the game.

Interview with Navara after Round 8: Gibchess YouTube

Here Navara won a pawn with 18.bxc5 bxc5 19.♘xe5 dxe5 20.♗xe5 ♛xe5 21.♗xb7 and never relinquished the edge even though it took more than 30 moves before the result became official.

Kirill Alekseenko won against Arkadij Naiditsch after a back-and-forth tussle.

Alekssenko vs Naiditsch | Photo: John Saunders

In the Ruy Lopez, White held the initiative and the following position emerged: 

Power Play 20: Test Your Attacking Chess

Grandmaster Daniel King presents ten exemplary attacking performances. At key moments he stops and asks you to play a move. King then gives feedback on the most plausible continuations. It’s the next best thing to having your own personal trainer!

Play the moves on the live diagram

White left the knight on f5 en prise and played 34.♖g3! Black answered 35...♚h8, when Alekseenko could have ended the game quickly, had he seized upon the idea of ♖h1 and ♔g1 followed by doubling rooks on the h-file. White instead started with 35.♖h3, giving Black an important tempo for 35...♜d8 36.♖h1 ♜xd3! and suddenly the game was somewhat unclear. After 37.♕xd3 if Naiditsch had found the precise 37...gxf5 38.gxf5 and only then ♞f4 White would have been forced to go for a perpetual check after 38.♔g1 ♝xf2+ 39.♔xf2 ♞xd3 40.♔e3 ♜f8.

The game continuation was similar, only White got to keep his f5-knight: 37...♞f4 38.♔g1? (here 38.♕c4 would have forced a favourable ending) 38...♝xf2! 39.♔xf2 ♞xd3 40.♔e3 (again threatening mate). 40...♜f8 41.♘e7! (another nice trick). Black is objectively better but has concrete problems to solve and Naiditsch didn't manage. After several tense moments he committed the decisive mistake in this position:

Black can hope to survive the rook ending after 46...♛xe7 47.♘xe7 ♚xe7, but his choice 46...♚d6 ended up in a mating net 47.♖hh7! c6 48.♘xf4 ♛b6+ 49.♔d3 and Black gave up.

Alekssenko's run came to an end in round nine, however when he came up against some tough preparation from Vachier-Lagrave, who was practically blitzing out his moves until the players reached the following position:

Black is in a tough spot but 26...♞c6 was a blunder, swiftly refuted by MVL: 27.♗h6! ♝f8 28.♘d7 f5 29.♕xf5 and Black would have to give up his rook on d7. 1-0

"This was all part of my preparation that I'd never managed to use."

Artemiev continued his impressive performance by scoring his sixth win in Gibraltar, against Navara.

Fighting the Grünfeld with g3

The Grünfeld Defence was invented by the famous Austrian Grandmaster Ernst Grünfeld in the early twenties of the last century. One of the first reactions to it came from the great Akiba Rubinstein - the g3 system, fianchettoing the bishop to g2. After that many systems were tried to refute the Grünfeld and nothing really worked. So, Rubinstein's recipe remains a very important positional approach against this dynamic opening.

Artemiev always starts his interviews with a polite "good evening"

Karthikeyan Murali, however, has a surprising chance for Gibraltar glory. He won a gruelling 68-move game against Russian GM Maxim Matlakov. Just 19 years old, Murali has nevertheless been a Grandmaster for nearly three years. He had a tough task to convert an endgame with a rook and two extra pawns for two pieces, but finally was able to cash in:

63.♖xd7+ ♝xd7+ 64.♔xb6 and Black's bishop is helpless to stop the pair of outside passers.

He'll take White against Vachier-Lagrave in Round 10.

Best women

Three players are tied on the top women’s score of 6 points going into the final round: Mariya Muzychuk, her sister Anna Muzychuk and Tan Zhongyi. Mariya has the best tie-break score. She played two draws against Adhiban and Jules Moussard.

Mariya Muzychuk | Photo: John Saunders

Results of Round 9 (top 20)

Standings after Round 9 (top 20)

...250 Players

Top pairings from Round 10

All games

Andre Schulz and John Saunders contributed reporting

Links

• All stories on Gibraltar 2019
• Official site
• Full results (Chess-results)