Tashkent 05: MVL tumbles, Naka leads

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 Five

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.

Don't Miss Danny King's commentary on the Playchess.com server tomorrow!

Nakamura, Hikaru 1-0 Gelfand, Boris
Nakamura stayed off the beaten path and chose a structure ag ainst the Sicilian that leads to interesting play but is considered to be ok for Black. Gelfand got a good position, but he miscalculated in a sharp endgame where all of White's and Black's pawns on the queenside were weak. This allows Nakamura to win a pawn and lead the position to a 4v3 endgame with rook and knight. After much insistence, his opponent eventually collapsed and Nakamura took a huge point.

Not bad! "Naka" leapfrogs to the top of the standings

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
Third time is the charm! After being vanquished twice in this variation Mamedyarov finally seems to have found the key to neutralizing White's position. He obtained a draw without too many problems.

Mamedyarov confidently defended his Bg4 Slav this time around

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam ½-½ Giri, Anish
A not terribly successful Grunfeld for Kasimdzhanov. After the opening it was only Black that could stand better, but that was also not very much. The players tried to maneuver around for a while but it was clear they were getting nowhere.

The typical "what was my prep here?!" face...

...now with double the grandmaster!

Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ Andreikin, Dmitry
Radjabov's novelty on move 22 of a fashionable line of the Berlin was not impressive at all. Andreikin equalized easily and Radjabov had to force a perpetual before he ended up worse.

22 moves of theory, and then 14 moves until the scoresheets were signed

Karjakin, Sergey 0-1 Jobava, Baadur
What a game! Jobava played his typical unusual Caro-Kann style stuff to get a passive but solid position, but he saw one opportunity and he took it. A well-timed bishop sacrifice gave him two pawns and a nagging initiative. Karjakin did not respond in the best way and he succumbed to the attack.

Jobava feeling good with his tea before the game

Karjakin was the victim of an ambitious bishop sacrifice

Daniel King analyses the game Karjakin - Jobava

Jakovenko, Dmitry 1-0 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
Very nice preparation from the Russian player. Following one of MVL's games from last year the Russian had his own novelty in store. MVL could not figure out how to obtain compensation against the extra pawn for his opponent and slowly he was pushed back until White's advantage was obvious. Jakovenko built up his position and then marched his queenside pawns to victory.

MVL could not create the counterplay he needed. He will have to figure it out for the
next time someone uses this line on him!

Photos by Anastasiya Karlovich from the official website

Standings

Round Five 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.