Paris 04: Dominguez, Ivanchuk win

Sixth FIDE Grand Prix - Paris 2013

The sixth and final Grand Prix of the system is taking place at the Chapelle de la Villedieu, founded in 1180 by soldier-monks of the Order of the Temple. The playing site is considerably west of Paris. The tournament will determine the last qualifiers for the Candidates tournament for the next World Chess Championship cycle. This leg of the series is being played under classical time controls: Time control: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, and then each player gets 15 minutes and an increment of 30 seconds per move after the second time control). No draws offers: Sofia rules!

Musical chairs... almost, the arbiters have to figure out where each one of these custom set chairs go

Round 4

The American is sitting at a win and three draws, and the fourth place in the live rating list now that Grischuk is not doing so well in this tournament

Wang Hao ½-½ Nakamura, Hikaru
Traditionally the Chinese player has had an advantage when playing against Nakamura, but the American has been able to fight back in recent times. Wang Hao employed one of his Reti set-ups that leads to a playable position for both sides without it becoming a theoretical duel. Nakamura countered his opponent's pair of bishops and queenside expansion with what he does best: activity and tactics. Eventually both sides were forced to simplify into a dead drawn endgame, but the fight was quite interesting.

The key moment of the game came at move 19, when Wang Hao decided to sacrifice his e-pawn. 19.e5!? would also have been interesting but Nakamura felt he could take the pawn without issues.

Gelfand has been leading since round one and he hasn't let go of the throttle, currently set at "steady at +2"

Bacrot, Etienne ½-½ Gelfand, Boris
The Israeli player keeps faithful to his Sveshnikov Sicilian, something no one has yet been able to crack, and Bacrot would have none of that. He chose 3.Bb5, the Rossolimo, to avoid the big lines of theory of the dreaded "B33" (the ECO code of the Sveshnikov) but also in this line that he chose Gelfand had little to worry about and he equalized, transposed into an endgame and drew.

The game actually followed the important game between Anand and Gelfand himself but it was clearly the Israeli that had learned more from that encounter than anything the Frenchman was able to extract from the duel.

A determined Dominguez crushed through Giri's defenses. Giri will have to step his play up this tournament as he has lost some half points he should not have.

Dominguez Perez, Leinier 1-0 Giri, Anish
The Spanish is of course a main battleground for players of this caliber, but there are always new things to be found even in this deeply analyzed opening. The Dutch came up with an interesting pawn sacrifice that gave him counterplay against White's weakened pawn structure, but he was overeager in recovering his material and the move 18...Re8? gave Dominguez the opportunity to trade his weak c6 pawn for Black's f7 pawn, therefore he just emerged up a clean extra pawn. The endgame was unpleasant for Black but Giri collapsed surprisingly quickly.

The new co-leader of the tournament checking out his opposition

Ponomariov, Ruslan ½-½ Tomashevsky, Evgeny
Tomashevsky recently adopted the triangle set-up against d4, with the idea of playing a Stonewall, as his pet defense. It seems solid enough for now as no one has really been able to break it down. Ponomariov was actually slightly worse out of the opening but he really had no issues as Tomashevsky was more interested in holding a solid draw with Black.

This guy's openings seem to be rock solid, but can he win any games?

Fressinet, Laurent 0-1 Ivanchuk, Vassily
Ivanchuk's Queen's Indian style of setup gave him a perfectly good position straight out of the opening. The opening of the kingside could not have favored him, though, and it seemed as if the Frenchman was soundly outplaying his opponent. He specifically missed a beautiful chance at move 30.Qe2! instead of trading the queens, this would have put the g4 knight in serious trouble and was strangely winning. The resulting endgame was still favorable for White, though, but a few unfortunate decisions allowed Ivanchuk to get rid of his main problems: a weak light-squared bishop and White's e-pawn, in a mater of a couple of moves. With these advantages gone White's rooks on the h-file started to look silly while black's free rook started roaming the queenside, picking uncontested pawn after uncontested pawn, after which Fressinet simply had to resign. An unfortunate game for Fressinet as he definitely had good chances to win.

Fressinet went from tying for first place to only half a point ahead of Giri who is in last place by losing two in a row. It's a brutal tournament!

Caruana also sits comfortably at 2.5/4, alongside Nakamura, and they are in hot pursuit of the leaders

Grischuk, Alexander ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
Grischuk has been employing this system against the Gruenfeld very recently. He used it to beat Nepomniatchi in the finals of the ACP Cup, but Caruana had his own plans. Instead of going for the Gruenfeld he took advantage of the fact that the move 4.e3 is undesirable in a King's Indian set-up and he did just that. However Grischuk did obtain a certain queenside initiative that allowed him to keep pressing for an advantage.

The Russian played a small combination to obtain a rook and two pawns against Black's two minor pieces. This was a clear advantage in the endgame and he was the only one playing for a win, but Caruana's defense was impeccable and he obtained a draw.

This game was very interesting from a standings point of view: both Grischuk and Caruana are the only two players who might qualify for the Cadidates' Tournament.

Most players prefer the nice chairs that the organization provided for them, but Grischuk likes it old school

Chuchelov, Caruana's second, was the special guest in Tiviakov's life coverage today

Anastasia Sorokina keeping everything under control

Tomorrow is a free day in Paris, and the players will visit the Palace of Versailles

Standings

Replay round four games

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Schedule

The games start at 15:00h European time, 17:00h Moscow, 9 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.