Tashkent R10: Mamedyarov and Morozevich lead in penultimate round

The second stage of the 2012-2013 FIDE Grand Prix Series is taking place from November 21 to December 5th in the Gallery of Fine Art in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The games start at 14:00h local time (= 10:00h CET, 13:00h Moscow, 04:00 a.m. New York). The tournament has a prize fund of 240,000 Euros.

Round ten report

The playing hall at the start of round ten

Morozevich-Leko 1-0: A sharp line of English opening led to an unbalanced position right from the start. Morozevich played the less popular but interesting 10.Bd2. “I believe that Black’s position is not worse after the opening but I just wanted to get a bit complicated position”, he explained.

Commentary by GM Alejandro Ramirez

The press conference after the end of each game

Alexander Morozevich analysing has game with press chief Anastasiya Karlovich

Kamsky-Svidler 1/2-1/2: A game started with the unusual 1.g3, although Peter Svidler had “an explanation” which he shared during the press conference. The Russian player was prepared to play the Pirc Defence against the usual 1.e4 of his opponent, but Gata Kamsky was just faster. Both players were sure they were playing a fresh position, but in fact only 13...Nfg4 appears to be a novelty. Black won a pawn but took strategical risks as White's compensation looked really dangerous. Svidler considered the 16th move to be a critical point in the game as he spent a lot of time calculating 16.f3!?, while Kamsky instead played 16.Bd2 almost without thinking. The resulting endgame looks close to equal, perhaps White could have tried 19.f4 with some chances to complicate the position, as after the game continuation Black and managed to equalize quite easily.

Caruana-Kazimdzanov 1/2-1/2: Another Anti-Marshall, this time with 8.d3 and 9. a4 – not the most popular but quite a logical line. Once again Rustam Kazimdzanov (above right, in the press conference) seemed to be very well prepared and, facing Fabiano's novelty 15.Ne3, managed not only to equalize but to get a slightly better endgame. Facing difficulties Fabiano Caruana decided to sacrifice a pawn. However he could have regretted his decision if Black had found 32...Nge7. It seems that after 33.Ke2 Rd8 34.Bxc5 Nd5 Black is simply better. During the press conference the former FIDE world champion pointed out that his first idea was to play 32…Nf4, but he didn’t see that after 33.Bf4 he had Rf3. Rustam was under time pressure and decided to return the material after 33...h5. White's 41.Ng5 was the beginning of a forced line which simplified the position. After that there wasn't much chance to win this game for any of the opponents.

Ponomariov-Dominguez 1-0: Ruslan Ponomariov chose a classical Closed Sicilian variation, with his bishop on g2, trying to get a complex position and to avoid the main lines. Leinier Dominguez played quite logically and his position even looked better after 21...Nd4, however it was still very complicated and the Ukrainian grandmaster managed to outplay his opponent in a mutual time trouble. After Ponomariov's 26.Nh5! White had a lot of tactical possibilities, tried to create one threat after another. It was quite hard for the Cuban player to defend his position in the practical game. After 29...Nb6? White's advantage was already huge, while the nice tactical decision 33.Rxe7 finished the game very quickly.

Gelfand-Wang Hao 1/2-1/2: Boris Gelfand (above) played his favorite Catalan and Wang Hao repeated the line with 4...dxc4 and 5...a6, as in his game against Kamsky. Boris went his own way and came up with a novelty, 11.Nbd2, which seems an improvement of White's play from recent Giri-Naidich game (Eilat 2012). Wang Hao managed to find a tricky way to keep his dark squared bishop from exchange (15...Bd4!, 16...Bf5!) and White had just a marginal edge. Once again, when it came to tactics Wang Hao found a nice resource to keep the position balanced – 27...c5 with the key idea 30...Qxf2!, and after precise 33...Re5 Black had no difficulties to hold an endgame. Perhaps the best practical chance for Gelfand was to play 35. Ke2.

Wang Hao and Boris Gelfand in the press conference

Mamedyarov-Karjakin 1-0: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (above left) chose to play the Queens Indian with 5.Qa4, as he didn’t cherish a hope to catch Sergey Karjakin in the opening. He tried to get a playable position and leave as many pieces on the board as its possible. “After I played g4, h4, Sergey started to play inaccurately and of course ...a6 was a big mistake! The endgame is very comfortable for White to play!” the Azeri player pointed out. White started to increase his advantage, and later on could have ended with an extra exchange, but Shakh came to conclusion that Black had good chances to defend that position. A few moves later it was White's turn to exchange his rook for a bishop and two central passed pawns. On the 41st move Sergey got his last chance to survive by playing 41…Rh4. Instead he chose quite passive Rc8, and Shakhriyar showed confident way for the victory.

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Standings after ten rounds

Summaries from the official web site, photos by Anastasiya Karlovich

Schedule and results

Video Reports

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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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