Teimour Radjabov wins FIDE Grand Prix in Geneva

The Grand Prix is being organized by Agon Limited, the commercial partner of the World Chess Federation, the game’s governing body. Agon has the exclusive commercial rights to organize the cycle of the World Championship.

Each Grand Prix has a prize fund of 130,000 euros, and the Geneva Grand Prix is supported by EG Capital Advisors, Kaspersky Lab and S.T. Dupont.

Twenty-four of the world’s best players are competing in the Grand Prix, with 18 of them participating in each of the tournaments. They will play a nine round swiss open played at 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

The tournament runs from June 6-15, with a rest day on June 11 after round five. Each round starts at 2 pm local time (8 am New York time).

Round nine

Photos by Valera Belobeev for World Chess

It had promised to be a thrilling game, but it is impossible to predict such things, and so often a final clincher has turned out as a dud. However, not so in this case, as Ian Nepomniachtchi knew he faced a situation in which the only way he might crown his rise in the second half of Geneva was by defeating Teimour Radjabov, the sole leader.

Teimour Radjabov put himself in the driver's seat and successfully finished his campaign

It was a very tough game as Teimour Radjabov admitted there was a slight trepidation that losing this last game would be incredibly unpleasant. That is a euphemism for ‘bolt the windows, and hide all sharp objects’. The opening worked well for him and he soon built a very nice position, leaving Ian Nepomniachtchi slightly worse, plus a time deficit. It was at this point that Radjabov strategically offered a draw, Nepo knew that by accepting he was effectively acceding to second place, like it or not, and like it he did not. He explained after the game that he spent a good chunk of time trying to find a way to continue the game, with a dream of turning it around, and felt that even if things did not go that way, he could hold. A bold fighting decision that is to be applauded, but his fears turned out to be correct as things began to degrade, and any hope that Radjabov might begin to buckle under the pressure was dismissed. He then decided to offer a draw himself, knowing this meant first for his opponent, but to his enormous surprise Radjabov declined!

Teimour explained that he felt there was no risk in continuing and that by now he had genuine chances to try for more, even though a draw was all that was needed. If any sign was needed to show just how differently and confidently the Azeri was playing, this was it. Eventually, the win did not materialize and a draw was the conclusion, but the warmest congratulations to both players for really showing what fighting tooth and nail in chess means. After complaints, justified, about lack of fight by players in previous GP events, this was a welcome about-face not only for the spectators but also the organizers.

A long and hard-fought game to decide the title, doing both players credit

Ian Nepomniachtchi - Teimour Radjabov (annotated by GM Aleksandr Lenderman)

Alexander Grischuk, who had drawn with Anish Giri just minutes before, comes to congratulate Teimour Radjabov

Radjabov and Nepomniachtchi share their post-game impressions 

The organizers had tried to market sales of live video commentary, this time featuring Evgeny Miroshnichenko and young Daniil Dubov, who just won the Russian Higher League, but with tales of multiple draws being concluded before the opening was even over, it was a tough sell. The price of $10 for the duration of the event could hardly be considered a prohibitive entry fee. In fact, as a means of demonstration, they provided the full round nine commentary on their YouTube channel for future consideration.

Full video of round nine live commentary 

For Teimour Radjabov this was more than just a win, it was an end to a drought that had plagued the former prodigy for the last years. After peaking at 2799 on the Live Rating in 2012, he suffered a loss of form that prolonged itself for so much time that no player could be impassive, and in the end of 2016 he momentarily misplaced his membership card to the 2700 club. It bears remembering that Teimour Radjabov is the second youngest player to break into the world Top 100 since FIDE adopted the Elo ratings system, doing so at the age of 14! Quick quiz question: can you name the youngest player to ever break into the Top 100? And while we're at it, here is Quiz Question number two: Radjabov holds a distinguished record in chess as the youngest ever at something. Without looking it up, can you guess what it is?

The awards for the winners

Speech time as the players receive their due

Teimour Radjabov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov

Levon Aronian is definitely a wit

Ian Nepomniachtchi will be delighted with his shared second place finish, especially after a 1.0/3 start, and must be congratulated not just for his aforementioned fighting spirit in the last games, but his stamina as well. He played almost non-stop in the last month, not to mention flying between events, from Paris to Leuven to Khanty-Mansiysk to Geneva, and all against the world’s very best players.

The players enjoy the end of the tournament and the tension

Ian Nepomniachtchi

Alexander Grischuk will also be delighted with his excellent shared second finish, though possibly with not quite the same enthusiasm as Nepomniachtchi. One cannot take away from his result and performance, but of the players challenging for the gold, he was the one who had the best chances. While he may regret agreeing to a draw in a slightly better position in round seven, the huge position he had against Mamedyarov in round eight that he let escape will gall him slightly. Had he been successful, he might be sharing first, and the difference would be everything in the overall Grand Prix. As it stands, although he is the player with the second highest total, he knows his position is tenuous at best, since three players could quite feasibly demote him in Palma de Mallorca in a couple of months.

Boris Gelfand and Ernesto Inarkiev grab a board and go over their game

Levon Aronian (right) broke his two loss streak with a win in the last round against Saleh Salem

Let’s take a look at the current Grand Prix standings. You will notice that the list is showing only six of the 24 players, and the reason is that only five (not six) have any chance now of winning one of the two spots in the next Candidates via the Grand Prix. Hikaru Nakamura is shown, merely to help illustrate how a good performing player in the series is now already out of that chance, even if he wins Palma outright.

A win is worth 170 Grand Prix points, and shared places then see their points totaled and then split evenly. There is no playoff or tiebreak score to award one player with more GP points. Since Nakamura has 141 points right now, even a perfect 170 in Palma giving him a total 311 won’t be enough to get past Mamedyarov and Grischuk. This isn’t to suggest his chances to play in the Candidates are over, just that his qualification won’t come from the Grand Prix cycle.

The real problem with Alexander Grischuk’s chances is that even a sole second place finish (not shared though) by either Teimour Radjabov or Ding Liren would give them 125 points and put them ahead of even Mamedyarov, bumping the Russian to third. In fact, even Mamedyarov might find himself denied a berth, if two of the three players still in contention grab a share of first. It isn’t just Radjabov and Ding Liren, as there is one more player still in the running: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. If he gets any piece of first in Palma, whether as a two-way tie or a three way tie that doesn’t include both Ding Liren and Radjabov, then he will snatch a spot as well.

As you can see, the Grand Prix is far from over, and the final tournament in Palma will be decisive. More on that when it comes!

Final standings

Links

• Official tournament site
• All games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)

You can use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.