Tashkent 02: Now with Playchess Commentary!

The second stage of the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix is taking place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The tournament will run from October 20th to November 3rd, 2014. Some of the strongest players in the world will compete in a Round Robin event. The winner and runner-up of the Grand Prix series will earn their spot at the 2016 Candidate's Tournament.

Round Two

Fans may be bemoaning the lack of live GM commentary for the Tashkent Grand Prix, but they need not worry as their voices were heard. Although it had not been previously scheduled, ChessBase will be bringing in GMs Simon Williams and Daniel King to provide live commentary on Playchess for all Premium subscribers. If you are not already a Premium member, you can become one here or alternately, packages such as Komodo 8 come with a 6-month Premium subscription included.

As of tomorrow, GM Simon Williams will cover round three, while GM Daniel King will comment rounds four and five. Live commentary will start at 12 pm sharp CET (Paris time).

Daniel King also brings us the recap of Round One:

Daniel King also brings us the recap of Round Two:

The players are not the only ones that travelled from Baku to Tashkent: both
Firuza Kasimdzhanova and Galiya Karyakina accompany their husbands

Gelfand, Boris ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
Gelfand's idea in the Queen's Indian gave him a small plus. Karjakin fought hard to keep this under control, and the resulting endgame was favorable for White, but nothing special. With only one weakness to attack (the pawn on c5) it was difficult to make progress. Gelfand agreed to draw when he ran out of ideas.

Gelfand tried, but Karjakin defended

Jakovenko, Dmitry ½-½ Radjabov, Teimour
Almost a carbon-copy of the game Fressinet-Radjabov, Jakovenko didn't bring anything new to the table that would indicate that this long and well known endgame is anything but a draw. Radjabov even lost a pawn at some point and at no point was there a doubt in anyone's mind that the game would end in a split point.

Jobava, Baadur ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
Jobava can count his lucky stars. With an incredibly bad opening he was almost lost by move 10. A nice stroke by Caruana with 9...b5! meant that Jobava's queen was suddenly in a very bad shape. Caruana probably would have won the game easily had he found the strong 11...Ne7, instead he decided to win a queen for a rook and a minor piece, but with the extremely reduced amount of material it became very difficult to win. At the end there were several continuations that gave Caruana a queen for a rook, but allowed Jobava to survive with a fortress. At the end of the day the Italian could not find a way and the draw was agreed.

Caruana definitely missed a chance to win today's game

Andreikin, Dmitry ½-½ Nakamura, Hikaru
Perhaps Andreikin was very surprised in the opening, but he simply had no chances in this game. Following an old idea of Shirov that was uncorked in 1997 against Anand (and that Fressinet used once after that) Nakamura simply forced a perpetual before move 25 was reached.

Nakamura's excellent preparation gave him an easy draw

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 1-0 Kasimdzhanov, Rustam
A very careless move in the opening left Kasimdzhanov in a bad position. The simplest of pawn advances almost trapped Black's bishop and the structure had to be compromised to save it. With already an edge in the bag MVL kept on pushing. A further mistake by Black meant that MVL had an extra pawn and the better position, and it was easy pickings from then on.

MVL starts with 2.0/2 and is here to show he can also win a GP

Giri, Anish ½-½ Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
An interesting novelty shocked Mamedyarov who did not know how to respond. The resulting endgame after a series of exchanges heavily favored Giri. He had pressure against an isolated and blockaded pawn, better development and doubled rooks on the c-file. However his technique was less than impressive, he was unable to really put any pressure on his opponent's position and slowly but surely Black consolidated to a draw.

Mamedyarov getting some fuel to defend an uncomfortable position

The spectators at the playing hall. You will have an even better view from the comfort of your home on the www.playchess.com server starting tomorrow with commentary by Simon Williams!

Photos by Anastasiya Karlovich from the official website

Standings

Round One Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Schedule

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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.