London Rd7: Gelfand leads, Mamedyarov a half point behind

The First FIDE Grand Prix is taking place from September 21 to October 3rd in Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, London. The games start at 14:00h local time (= 15:00h CEST, 17:00h Moscow, 09:00 a.m. New York). The tournament has a prize fund of 240,000 Euros.

Round seven report

By GM Robert Fontaine

Dominguez-Leko: Leinier avoided the main line of the Berlin Defence and went for the Closed Spanish Opening. Right after the opening, Peter decided to destroy the pawn centre with 15…c6 and 16…d5!? The endgame, which arose from these exchanges, was a bit better for White due to the pawn structure, but not enough to break Leko’s defence. and the draw was agreed after 40 moves.

Wang Hao-Topalov: A very exciting Grüfeld played by Topalov, who was two pawns down after eight moves, but of course still in his preparation. As compensation he immediately had a better development. After 13 moves, White hadn’t developed the kingside at all, with the bishop still on f1 and pawns on e2 and g2! All the black squares were weakened and Topalov logically took the advantage step by step. Approaching time trouble, Hao managed to survive his opponent’s attack and eventually equalized. A tough draw for the young Chinese player and a disappointment for Topalov.

Mamedyarov-Nakamura: Everyone was expecting blood in this game! “Shak” and Hikaru have explosive styles, based on attack. Without any big surprise, we had a King’s Indian arriving on the board and Shakhriyar went for a quiet line based on g3, Bg2. White took the space and Hikaru decided to change the course of the game by playing 17…c5?! White took the advantage by creating an attack after 18.e5! Mamedyarov kept on pressuring his opponent until the time trouble, where Black couldn’t find the best defence. He scored his second full point in a row. The game is annotated by GM Alejandro Ramirez below.

Ivanchuk-Kasimdzhanov: After few moves, Vasily was not writing down his moves. Carol Jarecki, the arbiter, made the small remark to the Ukrainian player. Vasily had just forgotten about it! In a strange move order (Reti), Rustam took the c4-pawn and tried to keep it as long as possible with 10…Qd4. Vasily didn’t go to the arbiter to ask for a draw (two times repetition only) and finally the draw was agreed after only 11 moves!

Adams-Gelfand: These two players know each other well very well and are from the same generation (Boris Gelfand was born in 1968 and Michael Adams in 1971). Michael went for the Rossolimo line of the Sicilian, choosing the b3, Bb2 plan. Boris decided to develop his pieces in an original way with f6, Kf7. The position looked pretty equal but Black had compensation with the two bishops. Boris even went for the a2-pawn, which seemed risky. Black kept his two pawn advantage until the rook endgame and managed to win. An important victory for Boris who is in real good shape so far!

A flurry of moves at the start of the Giri-Grischuk confrontation in Round 7

Giri-Grischuk: Anish Giri played the solid Maroczy Bind against Grischuk's 6…Ba7 Paulsen Sicilian. The young Dutch player went for the usual plan with a4-a5 in order to take space on the queenside. Grischuk’s position remained solid, exchanging all the pawns on the queenside and equalizing comfortably. The draw was agreed after a 41-move fight.

All photos by Ray Morris-Hill

Mamedyarov-Nakamura – analysis by GM Alejandro Ramirez

Video stream of the whole game

• Video stream of all six games

Daniel King analyses the game Mamedyarov - Nakamura

Standings after seven rounds

Schedule and results

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