Moscow Grand Prix R01: Yifan sole winner

The time control in the GP tournaments is 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 Grand Prix returns to the Telegraph Building in central Moscow, which previously hosted the 2016 Candidates Tournament won by Sergey Karjakin of Russia.

The tournament, a nine round Swiss contest, is the second of four Grand Prix in 2017 and follow’s the Sharjah Grand Prix in February which was won by Alexander Grischuk, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in a three way tie.

The Moscow Grand Prix is sponsored by Kaspersky Lab, PhosAgro and EG Capital Partners.

Each round starts at 2PM (GMT +3).

Round 1 on 2017/05/12 at 14:00

All photos by Max Avdeev

The first move on the top board by a, for now, inexperienced player

The Moscow Grand Prix starts with a serious cloud over its head, which, for the good of chess, it needs to get rid off somehow. The Sharjah Grand Prix, the first leg on the four-tournament tour, was without a doubt one of the least interesting super-tournaments in recent memory (or perhaps the history of chess). The incredible amount of draws, especially quick and uninteresting ones, was a serious issue.

The start in Moscow is, to be frank, not the most promising. The high number of draws continues, though granted, some where more interesting than others. As ACP President Emil Sutovsky commented:

As mentioned, some of today's games were indeed quite interesting, but Sutovsky presumably is talking about the game between Salem and Grischuk:

Not the most tiring day for Alexander Grischuk

Even a 30-move rule, which is not in effect in Moscow, would not have prevented this from happenings.

Onto the more interesting games. The top seed of the event is again Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who today faced England's Mickey Adams. The Frenchman introduced the novelty 15.Be3 in a complicated Marshall Gambit of the Spanish, but it did not rattle his opponent. White's only chance of pushing for a win was the risky but complex 18.Qxc6, which was not played, after which Adams obtained an easy draw.

Nakamura seemed confident in his opening idea and obtained a razor-sharp draw

The Inarkiev-Nakamura game had a cool finish:

Giri's preparation against Gelfand's accelerated Dragon gave him a slight edge, but when it was time to push with a slight edge the Dutch player was unable to put any real pressure. Gelfand equalized in a rook endgame and secured the draw.

Fresh off a win at the Reykjavik Open, Anish Giri was unable to convert a slight edge against Boris Gelfand in a Dragon endgame

Radjabov's game against Ding Liren can be summarized by many trades leading into an almost insignificant advantage for White against an isolated queen's pawn. The game was drawn in a major piece endgame that had no life left in it.

Even though Radjabov was close to 2800 at some point, there is now an
80 point rating gap between the two Azerbaijanis (Mamedyarov on the left)

Vallejo Pons' essay of 3...a6!? in the Queen's Gambit Declined led to a fun and interesting opening, but almost all of the sudden all the pieces got traded and a drawn rook endgame emerged. The GP Virus?!

Tomashevsky-Svidler was another one of those games that was a draw but could have been more interesting. The position reached maximum craziness here:

Tomashevsky walks around the playing hall while Giri attempts to remember his preparation

The only decisive game came at the hands of Hou Yifan, who soundly defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi:

Early leader in Moscow: Hou Yifan was the only full point of the day

Last, but certainly not least, was the game between Pentala Harikrishna and Jon Ludvig Hammer. The Norwegian player came in a fighting mood, after a timely sacrifice of his queen for a rook, bishop and two pawns, he was definitely playing for a win in a two-result game. Unfortunately for him, it was never quite enough, and the Indian player held on.

Sometimes the job just means to suffer for 92 moves and hold the draw

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Round one games

Standings after one round

Round Two Pairings

Live Commentary

AGON is offering exclusive pay-per-view video of the games and live commentary. It comes in three packages: a one-time $10 fee just for Moscow GP, a full package of all the events in the World Championship cycle for $30, and a $250 package, which is the same as the $30 Base but comes with signed posters from each event.

For more information, see the widget on the main page.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.