Paris 09: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

by ChessBase
10/2/2013 – The players exemplified France's motto, liberty, equality and brotherhood. Giri-Caruana and Tomashevsky-Grischuk were hard fought, and although the other players tried their best the drawish nature of the positions they arrived to lead to today's round featuring six draws. This leaves Nakamura still half a point ahead of Caruana and Gelfand with two rounds to go. Report of round 9.

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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!

City of Versailles

The Press Officer for the event, Alina l'Ami, brings us some beautiful pictures of the city of Versailles, which is much closer than Paris is for the players. The city holds a little under 90,000 inhabitants, and it was once the capital of the kingdom of France. Nowadays it is a suburb of Paris and it has a service based economy revolving around its famous Chateau.

Autumn starts to change the leaf coloring in Europe, a sight that many people take for granted but is completely impacting to those that are not used to having four seasons

L’hôtel de ville de Versailles, not an hotel - the city hall

The French motto: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

As many buildings in France, this one is even more spectacular at night

Art can be seen everywhere in France. Felice Varini is a Swiss artist who was nominated for the 200/2001 Marcel Duchamp Prize, and is known for his geometric perspective-localized paintings in rooms and other spaces using projector-stencil techniques. According to mathematics professor and art critic Joel Koskas, "A work of Varini is an anti-Mona Lisa".

Felice paints on architectural and urban spaces, such as buildings walls and streets. The paintings are characterized by one vantage point from which the viewer can see the complete painting (usually a simple geometric shape such as a circle, square or line) while from other view points the viewer will see 'broken' fragmented shapes. The random red lines seen above look like this from the correct vantage point:

An "anti-Mona Lisa"

Round 9

Round 09 – October 02 2013, 15:00h
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772 ½-½ Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
Gelfand, Boris 2764 ½-½ Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
Giri, Anish 2737 ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano 2779
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703 ½-½ Grischuk, Alexander 2785
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757 ½-½ Fressinet, Laurent 2708
Bacrot, Etienne 2723 ½-½ Wang Hao 2736

Guests to the tournament: on the left, IM and associate professor on Computer Science and Engineering of Buffalo University, Kenneth W. Regan, on the right is Yuri Garrett - member of the anti-cheating comittee.

Nakamura didn't have any real winning chances today

Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½ Ponomariov, Ruslan
The players followed a long theoretical variation in the Nimzo-Indian. Nakamura played the new moves 16.Nd2 but it is unclear exactly how good this move is. On move 17 Black had the choice of playing as he did in the game or immediately pinning the knight on c4 with 17...Rac8, definitely the most logical way of continuing and maybe White would have had to solve a few issues. The continuation in the game gave Ponomariov enough compensation for the pawn and allowed him to simplify into an easily drawn rook endgame.

Ponomariov played logical chess and got a comfortable draw

Gelfand, Boris ½-½ Ivanchuk, Vassily
The Chebanenko or ...a6 Slav continues to be very solid; Ivanchuk obtained a good position from the opening although it would be hard for either side to make progress because of the locked situation in the center. Ivanchuk's 14...Ke7!? was bizarre but by no means a bad move as it highlighted that the game was indeed not going to be opened up any time soon. Actually, the game never opened up, and the players agreed to a draw in a position where all the pawns had survived but none of the minor pieces remained on the board.

Today's position in Gelfand-Ivanchuk was simply too locked up for either side to do anything

Dominguez Perez, Leinier ½-½ Fressinet, Laurent
The Frenchman chose the ultra-solid Berlin defense. Dominguez tried the most typical approach: go for the endgame and try to outplay Black in that position. His only chance to obtain something in the position was to take on c7 on move 23, but even then it seems that Black's position was solid enough and it would have been hard to break through. Instead of that the inaccurate 23.Ng5 basically forced a draw as Black had no choice but to push e5 and then was forced to defend it, creating a repetition.

The Berlin will always make appearance at the top level of chess, it seems as if White is still unable to crack the ensuing endgame

Bacrot, Etienne ½-½ Wang Hao
The players kept trying in an equal position that resulted from a Bogo-Indian. Bacrot had a minimal edge in space because of his more advanced queenside pawns but by no means did this grant him anything tangible. After trying to outplay Wang Hao somehow the players agreed to a draw in move 40 after basically exhausting their resources.

You can't blame the players for not trying, but today neither side was going to give the other a single opportunity to gain an advantage

Tomashevsky played one of the more interesting games of the day, but he managed his nineth draw of the tournament anyways

Tomashevsky, Evgeny ½-½ Grischuk, Alexander
A very interesting game. Grischuk sacrifiiced a pawn early in the game for initiative, but Tomashevsky was not about to play his game and decided to focus in development rather than material gains. Grischuk aggressively expanded and won the pair of bishops but Tomashevsky struck back by getting in the e5 break and strongly placing his knights, matching the power of his opponent's bishops. The duel came to whether the passed pawn on d6 was weak or strong; if it was captured quickly Black would have an overwhelming advantage, but if not maybe Tomashevsky could use it to pin Grischuk to his back ranks. Unfortunately the d-pawn disappeared very soon, as Tomashevsky found himself forced to sacrifice it for activity by his rooks and to eliminate the light squared bishop. Grischuk countered by sacrificing his own pawn to activate his dark-squared bishop, and soon afterwards the game ended in a draw in an interesting rook endgame.

Giri, Anish ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
Despite using a rather strange opening Caruana had nothing to complain about after ten moves of chess. Giri's set-up was solid but not too ambitious asnd Black had an acceptable Benoni despite putting his bishop on e7. The game went back and forth until Black was allowed to play the move 25...c4! and it was clear that Caruana held an edge. An important inaccuracy on move 31 allowed White to retain a strong knight on e4, which should have been kicked out immediately and maybe Black could have had some winning chances. In the game Caruana sacrificed an exchange for a pawn and counter-chances against White's exposed king. Giri misplayed the position by allowing Black to consolidate his king, he should have struck back with 47.h4! but even without this his position was strong enough to hold to a draw.

Giri held on to dear life but he is still trailing behind Fressinet, Grischuk and Wang Hao by 1.5 points

Tiviakov with Yuri Garrett and Konstantin Landa discussing anti-cheating measures

FIDE Press Officer for the tournament Alin L'Ami in action. Photo courtesy of Eric Cheymol.

Standings

Photos by Alina l'Ami

Replay round nine games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Schedule

Round 01 – September 22 2013, 15:00h
Fressinet, Laurent 2708
½-½
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
Grischuk, Alexander 2785
½-½
Wang Hao 2736
Caruana, Fabiano 2779
½-½
Bacrot, Etienne 2723
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
½-½
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
½-½
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
Gelfand, Boris 2764
1-0
Giri, Anish 2737
Round 02 – September 23 2013, 15:00h
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
½-½
Giri, Anish 2737
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
½-½
Gelfand, Boris 2764
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
½-½
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
Bacrot, Etienne 2723
½-½
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
Wang Hao 2736
½-½
Caruana, Fabiano 2779
Fressinet, Laurent 2708
1-0
Grischuk, Alexander 2785
Round 03 – September 24 2013, 15:00h
Grischuk, Alexander 2785
½-½
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
Caruana, Fabiano 2779
1-0
Fressinet, Laurent 2708
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
1-0
Wang Hao 2736
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
1-0
Bacrot, Etienne 2723
Gelfand, Boris 2764
1-0
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
Giri, Anish 2737
½-½
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
Round 04 – September 25 2013, 15:00h
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
½-½
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
1-0
Giri, Anish 2737
Bacrot, Etienne 2723
½-½
Gelfand, Boris 2764
Wang Hao 2736
½-½
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
Fressinet, Laurent 2708
0-1
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
Grischuk, Alexander 2785
½-½
Caruana, Fabiano 2779
Round 05 – September 27 2013, 15:00h
Caruana, Fabiano 2779
½-½
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
0-1
Grischuk, Alexander 2785
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
½-½
Fressinet, Laurent 2708
Gelfand, Boris 2764
½-½
Wang Hao 2736
Giri, Anish 2737
0-1
Bacrot, Etienne 2723
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
½-½
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
Round 06 – September 28 2013, 15:00h
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
½-½
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
Bacrot, Etienne 2723
½-½
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
Wang Hao 2736
½-½
Giri, Anish 2737
Fressinet, Laurent 2708
½-½
Gelfand, Boris 2764
Grischuk, Alexander 2785
½-½
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
Caruana, Fabiano 2779
1-0
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
Round 07 – September 29 2013, 15:00h
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
½-½
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
1-0
Caruana, Fabiano 2779
Gelfand, Boris 2764
1-0
Grischuk, Alexander 2785
Giri, Anish 2737
½-½
Fressinet, Laurent 2708
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
½-½
Wang Hao 2736
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
½-½
Bacrot, Etienne 2723
Round 08 – September 30 2013, 15:00h
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
0-1
Bacrot, Etienne 2723
Wang Hao 2736
½-½
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
Fressinet, Laurent 2708
½-½
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
Grischuk, Alexander 2785
1-0
Giri, Anish 2737
Caruana, Fabiano 2779
1-0
Gelfand, Boris 2764
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
0-1
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
Round 09 – October 02 2013, 15:00h
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772 ½-½ Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
Gelfand, Boris 2764 ½-½ Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
Giri, Anish 2737 ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano 2779
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703 ½-½ Grischuk, Alexander 2785
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757 ½-½ Fressinet, Laurent 2708
Bacrot, Etienne 2723 ½-½ Wang Hao 2736
Round 10 – October 03, 14:00h
Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756   Wang Hao 2736
Fressinet, Laurent 2708   Bacrot, Etienne 2723
Grischuk, Alexander 2785   Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757
Caruana, Fabiano 2779   Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703
Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731   Giri, Anish 2737
Nakamura, Hikaru 2772   Gelfand, Boris 2764
Round 11 – October 04, 14:00h
Gelfand, Boris 2764   Ponomariov, Ruslan 2756
Giri, Anish 2737   Nakamura, Hikaru 2772
Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2703   Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731
Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2757   Caruana, Fabiano 2779
Bacrot, Etienne 2723   Grischuk, Alexander 2785
Wang Hao 2736   Fressinet, Laurent 2708

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

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.


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