Paris 05: Two Black wins

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!

Visit to Versailles

Many of the players took advantage of the day off to visit the closest main attraction to their playing site: the Palace of Versailles, one of the main tourist spots in France. 

Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682 until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October of 1789 due to the French Revolution. Versailles is famous not only as a french chateau but also as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Regime.

Ponomariov and his second, Baklan, have just been informed that their
guided tour allows them to skip the hour long line to get into the palace

The players well full of questions and had a very interactive tour

The Galerie des Glaces, or known by its English name the Hall of Mirrors,
probably the most celebrated room in the entire chateau

Ponomariov inspecting every room in the castle, deciding which one is fit to hold the next Grand Prix

Nakamura is of course a famous figure, and it's easy to brand
him as an American with his New York Yankees t-shirt

The players enjoyed an amazing cultural experience

A breathtaking view of Versailles

The Gardens of Versailles are just as impressive, but they wil have to wait until next time

Art Exhibit at Chapelle de la Villadieu

While the players were exploring France's most famous castle, the Chapelle that is hosting their tournament was home to a chess-based art exhibition by Zigou, a french fashion designer and artist.

The Chapelle is lit to welcome the art exhibit

The art that is based on chess, in the unquestionable style of the artist

The French Chess Federation president, Diego Salazar
and the director of communications of St. Quentin, Serge Hegly-Delfour

The artist, Zigou, on the left and the official reporter of the tournament,
Alina L'Ami who has provided us with this amazing pictures

Zigou is a fashion designer for mnay labels from New York to Paris, including St. Laurent. She has been in the cover of Elle, Warhol's magazine, Vogue and many other prestigious magazines. She was the medalist of honor at the GANFA Nantes show in 2007 and 2008 for her paintings and now exhibits in galleries in Paris, Bordeaux and in the Dordogne.

Zigou doesn't sign her paintings, but there is always a distinct Z
in them marking them as hers. Can you find it in this painting?

Round 5

The exhibit is still up and going during the round

An interesting addition to the usual set up

Gelfand, Boris ½-½ Wang Hao
This line of the Queen's Gambit has become a little more popular in the last year. Black's idea is to accept a slightly worse position but with the goal of quickly exchanging pieces and hoping to salvage a draw in an endgame that is not so dangerous. This is precisely what happened today; after the queenside was annihilated and many pieces were traded off there simply wasn't enough material to play on.

Gelfand's draw against Wang Hao allows him to retake the sole lead as Ivanchuk lost to Grischuk

Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½ Fressinet, Laurent
The American player essayed a positional Spanish which trades on d6 only after Black has committed some of his pieces to arguably no the best squares for the pawn structure, especially the knight on f6. However Fressinet really had no issues equalizing and eventually he made a small sacrifice to force a perpetual.

Fressinet obtained equality from the start and never gave Nakamura an opening in his defense

Tomashevsky, Evgeny ½-½ Dominguez Perez, Leinier
White's minimal edge given by the pair of bishops was counterbalanced by Black's better pawn structure. After some trades Dominguez was able to win a pawn, but it was relatively useless as the only remaining pieces were a pair of opposite colored bishops, and Tomashevsky had no problem proving that it was an easy draw.

French Chess Federation president Diego Salazar whispering
moves to the founder-director of the Bibaisport, Gilles Lorin

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Ponomariov, Ruslan
Caruana posed no problems to Ponomariov's Berlin defense, and it was even the black player that held a slight edge due to his pair of bishops and then an extra (but crippled) pawn. It's hard to say that White was in any real danger at any point but it was certainly Black that had the easier game.

Ivanchuk, Vassily 0-1 Grischuk, Alexander
Ivanchuk's opening experiment against the Gruenfeld didn't go as well as planned. He took an important strategic decision early on with 13.f4?! Despite the fact that this kills Black's main idea, which was to play f5, it also weakened many squares and specifically the bishop on h2 was doomed to passivity for the rest of the game. Grischuk immediately took advantage of the weakened light squares by planting two powerful knights, one on g4 and another on e4, to pressure White's position.

Grischuk proved the strength of Black's pieces and swept Ivanchuk from the board

In an already bad position, Ivanchuk blundered the fabulous maneuver the finished off the game, here are the full annotations:

Giri, Anish 0-1 Bacrot, Etienne
Giri seemed to be playing a nice positional game, slowly but surely consolidating his space advantage and making Black's position uncomfortable. He was well set-up to receive Black's break with b5, but he didn't respond in the best way and allowed Bacrot to equalize fully. Only a few moves later White missed an important resource by Black, the move 26.Rf1? made his position terrible because the threat on f6 was not real! Black ignored his hanging piece and recovered it through a well calculated tactical sequence. After that White's structure was ripe to be picked up one pawn at a time, and this is exactly what Bacrot did to take home the victory.

Giri is currently at -3 and will need to play much better to be able to recover

Standings

Replay round five 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.