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What is interesting is that the third leg of the GP has been moved from Tehran to Tbilisi. Jobava replaces Ghaem Maghami from Iran. He and his opponents have little time to prepare for each other.
October 20 Opening Ceremony
October 21 Round 1
October 22 Round 2
October 23 Round 3
October 24 Round 4
October 25 Free Day
October 26 Round 5
October 27 Round 6
October 28 Round 7
October 29 Round 8
October 30 Free Day
October 31 Round 9
November 1 Round 10
November 2 Round 11
November 2 Closing Ceremony
The rounds start at 14:00 Tashkent time, which is 5 am Toronto/Montreal time.
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Chessintranslation.com has excerpts from an interview with Boris Gelfand. One quote:
Which older chess players influenced you most, and who made the greatest impression on you?
I’ve tried to learn from all players but, no doubt, I was most impressed by Yury Razuvaev and Valery Myrachvery’s “Akiba Rubinstein”. I read it again and again in my childhood. And even today when I meet Yury or we talk on the telephone we often return to that book, to Akiba’s games. The striving to play deeply in the opening, and the so-called “long plan”, that is when a game’s played from the beginning to the end in one key… That’s what I like in chess, and it comes from Akiba.
I met my first trainer, Eduard Aronovich Zelkind, when I was 6 years old. He’d only been a trainer for a few years at that point. I was incredibly lucky because, as experience shows, a lot depends on what sort of trainer you come across first. The foundations that are laid out remain for your whole life. There are players at the very highest level who from their first steps in chess solved combinations – and only that! I think that’s how it was for Polgar and Mamedyarov. They have an incredibly well developed combinational vision, and they’ll have it all their lives… For us Zelkind, of course, also developed our tactical vision. I’ve still got a notebook with the first positions that he gave me. I still couldn’t write so either he or my parents would write down my homework. Bishop sacrifices on h7 are noted there… But he also taught us the endgame. At 9 years old I knew rook endgames to the same level as many current grandmasters, with no false modesty.
The pairings are out for all the rounds. I am looking forward to Jobava-Caruana in Round 2 and Caruana-Gelfand, Round 7. Nakamura-Jobava tomorrow might not be chopped liver either!
Dmitry Olegovich Jakovenko was born in Omsk, but spent his childhood in the Northern Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk, over 3000 kilometers from Moscow. He learned the game at the age of 3 and was competing with adults at the local chess club in Nizhnevartovsk by the time he was 5. He reached Russian 1st category at the age of 7 during the 1990 city championship, gained his candidate master title in 1994 at age 11, the International Master title in 1997 at the age of 14, and the Grandmaster title at age 18 in 2001. While competing for the U10 World Championship in Bratislava, he met Aleksander S Nikitin (Garry Kasparov ’s head trainer at the time), who then became his coach. Jakovenko went professional in 2004.
Jakovenko’s academic record was sparkling. He was a straight-5 student (the equivalent of straight As), won a zonal final of the all-Russian Mathematical Olympiad, graduated from Moscow State University after studying computing, math and cybernetics, and eventually received a PhD in economics.
IM (1998); GM (2001); U18 World Champion (2001); Moscow Champion (2006); twice Olympiad individual gold medalist (2008 & 2012); European Champion (2012).
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It is interesting that three players in this tournament have Vladimir Chuchelov as their trainer – Caruana and Radjabov and until recently, Giri. It will be interesting to see how the Chuchelov School fares.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Monday, 20th October, 2014, 10:36 PM.
Here I am at work hoping to chime in and watch the live stream of the event. No video, no interviews, NOTHING.
Terribly organized event by FIDE.
lol. If you're not self-employed then you might want to be more careful about making a public statement about what you really do when you're at work.
The FIDE link has the following ....
Online commentary of Grand Prix Tournament (Tashkent, UZB) by GM Alexei Barsov (UZB)
... which includes all the games.
And, of course, you can watch the live feed on FICS if you can't find anything else. But your employer might not like you installing a FICS interface on the hard drive. hehe.
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
There appears to be no live video. The online commentary by Uzbek GM Alexei Barsov is written only. There are no interviews today and Fabiano Caruana has the United States of America given as his home country on one large chessboard display.
I am sure this will all get sorted out. There always seems to be something going wrong in the first two rounds of these big tournaments.
Comments on the games by Alejandro Ramirez at chessbase.com
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 0-1 Andreikin, Dmitry
A rather strange game. Andreikin was fine from the opening, but underestimated how weak his d-pawn was. After losing it he entered a worse rook endgame, simply down a pawn but with excellent drawing chances. Then, in time pressure, Mamedyarov imploded and he panicked. Andreikin played precise moves to take advantage of the situation and his passed pawns proved more powerful than his opponent's.
Nakamura, Hikaru 1-0 Jobava, Baadur
The American's opening was good enough for a slight advantage; Jobava tried to complicate things with a mistimed knight maneuver. Nakamura powerfully broke through the center and the Georgian tried to further muddy the waters with a knight sacrifice. Nakamura's precise calculation precisely thwarted the treats and he ended up a rook in a position that was still not 100% clear, but definitely favoring him. Jobava made it easier on him with a bad queen trade and Nakamura took the full point.
Caruana, Fabiano 0-1 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
MVL's understanding of the Najdorf is just superb. It is not just his opening theory, but he knows precisely when to sacrifice pawns and how to continue the game. His precisely timed sacrifice gave him a great amount of activity. He was able to get back his materials and even reap some benefits. He converted his advantage in a winning opposite colored bishop endgame. A nice birthday present for himself!
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Giri analyzing his game for the press conference... which was watched by no one. For some reason there is no live transmission from Tashkent. No video, no live commentary. It is disappointing that a tournament of this level of importance and with such a caliber does not even have a commentary team that can be watched online at the official website.
___________________
Chess24.com had an interview with Anish Giri by Paco Vallejo at the conclusion of the recent Unive match with Alexei Shirov, which Giri won 4.5-1.5:
Paco: Congratulations, you played a very solid match, almost without trouble. What’s your next tournament?
Anish: Tomorrow I’m flying to Tashkent, actually. The Grand Prix. So I’ve got a busy schedule.
Paco: Good luck there. You’ll have a tough time, I guess. Your opponents will be at least more difficult to predict, because Alexei’s fault in this match was that he was very predictable in the openings.
Anish: Also not deeply enough prepared.
Paco: These other guys. The Fabianos, Karjakin, they study all the time.
Anish: Yes, I’ve had experience enough of feeling how well they’re prepared and how tough guys they are so I’m not going to underestimate them – that’s for sure.
Another subplot in Tashkent will be the battle of the coaches. Anish Giri has recently switched coaches from Vladimir Chuchelov to another Vladimir – Tukmakov.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Tuesday, 21st October, 2014, 12:11 PM.
Tashkent 2014
For some reason there is no live transmission from Tashkent. No video, no live commentary. It is disappointing that a tournament of this level of importance and with such a caliber does not even have a commentary team that can be watched online at the official website.
Is Vachier-Lagrave the new Caruana? He now leads with 2/2. There still appears to be no live coverage due to technical difficulties. That statement covers a wide variety of sins. My local deli actually had a sign up on the door one Tuesday which said "Closed Due to Technical Difficulties". In idle moments I try to conceive of what they might be.
Tashkent 2014
Round 2
Oct. 22, 2014
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime – Kasimdzhanov, Rustam
C65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defence
A little something for everyone in Jobava-Caruana. It looks like Caruana should have played 44…Rh1 instead of 44….Ra8.
(From chess.com) - Baadur Jobava wasn't a hundred percent fresh either at the start of the round. The Georgian GM played 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Be2!?, a kind of Reversed Philidor with which he has the amazing score of 4.5/5 (although it's hard to credit that modest bishop move).
His 7.Qa4 stopped ...a5-a4 and prepared 8.b4, which was fine, but White should immediately continue with b4-b5. What happens when White casually castles there can be seen in the game: ruthless punishment by Fabiano Caruana, who immediately picked up the white queen.
However, to everyone's surprise the Italian GM didn't win that game! Somehow Jobava reached a fortress, then allowed too many chances for his opponent but still escaped.
(Another excellent annotation from chess.com) - Like in his Univé match with Alexei Shirov, Giri's opening preparation is looking good. Although Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had played the same line the day before as White, the Azeri GM was the first to take a big think after the pseudo-sacrifice 10.Nxd5. His reaction wasn't great, and he got into a bad ending.
It was a textbook IQP ending (after move 16), which is discussed in detail by Mikhail Shereshevsky in his classic Endgame Strategy, for example the games Flohr-Pirc, Podebrady 1936 and Averbakh-Matanovic, Belgrade 1961. However, in textbooks the weaker side always makes more mistakes, and then we see how White can win. Mamedyarov didn't make those mistakes and held it to a draw, helped by his opponent who lost a tempo somewhere.
Video is up and running today. GM Alexei Barsov is giving the commentary, the display board is accurate and they are accompanying those with still pictures of the players. The press conferences are normal videos with the players animatedly analyzing and Anastasia Karlovich putting in the occasional comment.
At the press conference Giri analyzes in English with Nakamura, then answers a question from the audience in Russian and analyzes for a few minutes in Russian.
In Mamedyarov-Gelfand, Boris has a draw in the endgame but with 47…Rxg2, loses.
Supposedly the Fort Knox variation of the French Defense was first played by Capablanca in 1902. The idea is that black takes extra time to develop the worst piece in the game - his light-squared bishop. It's called the Fort Knox because it is very hard for white to break this. Neil McDonald's How to Play Against 1. e4 advocates the Fort Knox, and spends a good deal of time talking about themes and structures.
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(A battle of monster preparations. White obviously had an edge in the endgame, but the question is whether that edge can or cannot be used. As it transpired, it was MVL that had the correct assesment as Radjabov was unable to put Black in any sort of danger. The novelty of the game was on move 25...g6. The first new move of the game! Both sides had analyzed this variation very deeply, but with different engines! Sources say that MVL analyzed this very deeply with Houdini, while Radjabov used either Stockfish, Komodo or his own eyes. ChessBase.com)
This tournament ends on November 3. The Tashir/Tigran Petrosian Supertournament starts on November 3 in Moscow and Gelfand is scheduled to play. So, practically without a break he will have played 11 games in Baku, 11 games in Tashkent and then 7 in Moscow – 29 games!
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Thursday, 23rd October, 2014, 12:53 PM.
Karjakin (tweet) – When you see a clear draw after 20. Rae1 g4 21. Qf5 (21. c5 is even better), it is very hard to explain 20. c5... 50%. Time to start from the beginning.
Nakamura grinds the endgame out. It is now 6.5 hours into the game and he has made some progress nearing the 90th move. Boris has less than a minute on his clock and Hikaru has almost eight.
And Nakamura wins! He is top of the table and Gelfand and Caruana are near the bottom.
Comment on chessbomb.com - In one day we may have seen both Jakovenko's immortal, Jobava's immortal, and now Nakamura's immortal.
Perhaps that is using immortal far too loosely, this just cannot be a three immortal round!
Clearly, Karjakin is not himself. Yesterday at the press conference after the game he lost to Jobava, chess.com wrote “ Karjakin, who arrived at the playing hall just thirty seconds before the start of the round, said he “forgot about the time”, adding “but maybe it was a good decision not to come [at all]!”
Mark Crowther (tweet) When Karjakin played his 12th move he only had 20 minutes left. That's completely nuts clock handling. Indecision two days in a row?
There was a good quote after yesterday’s Radjabov-Andreikin game: At the press conference a young kid asked the grandmasters how much time they study chess per day. While Andreikin stressed the importance of having fun with chess (and football) at his age, Radjabov answered: “These days it's very important to work hard to get good positions. I study about 6-8 hours a day but there are days when you don't study at all.”
Rustam was very short of time and played 22…Rad8, which gave him a bad game and Shakhriyar finished him off when he played a couple more bad moves in his time trouble.
White sacrificed a pawn with 30. b4 and got a slightly worse position. With 47…Ne4 Black gave up his advantage. He should have played Ne6, protecting his b-pawn. Caruana had good chances to win but now it is a draw.
The press conferences have been very relaxed today with lots of laughter among the younger players.
Baadur says at the press conference that his games with Maxime are always exciting. Maxime looks like he could sit in front of the computer for hours; Baadur can hardly keep still when talking. He planned to sacrifice his bishop on c2 and did (14..Bxc2) and got good chances when Maxime didn’t reply precisely (17. Bd3). White untangled his pieces and had a better game. Baadur played courageously and accepted a draw from Maxime in the end. A pretty little Tal-like game.
Jobava continues to delight with his enterprising style. He should be invited at all big tournaments to deliver the excitement of human spirit creativity in an era of computer dictated play. His 4 points in this company of elite players is already a good result.
On the other hand, Gelfand 2 is not the same with Gelfand 1. Why did he sign up for this round in Taskent?
The third leg of the Grand Prix was originally scheduled for Tehran. The Americans and the Israeli would rather not play there for good reasons. Then, after Gelfand had signed up for Tashkent, Tehran was changed to Tbilisi. Players have to go to three of the four tournaments and several, I am sure, would have skipped Tashkent and played in Tbilisi (Feb) and Khanty-Mansiysk (May) rather than to go to Tashkent so soon after Baku.
The good thing about all that is that Jobava entered the Grand Prix competition because he is the home player for Georgia.
He reminds me so much of Tal that it is frightening. Instead of staying in his hotel room and studying for the next Tashkent game, Jobava played Internet chess. This story from chess.com:
What would you do if it were midnight and you were a last-minute replacement to compete for world championship qualification? If you're GM Baadur Jobava, you’d log on to Chess.com and crush the field in the first "Titled Tuesday."
For the top Georgian player, it was actually "Titled Wednesday." As Jobava was taking a break from the FIDE Grand Prix in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the online tournament for titled players began at midnight local time.
By the time Jobava (username SexyLexy) had finished 90 minutes later, he pocketed $500 by winning 8/9, dropping only the meaningless final round.
He had clinched clear first place over the other 51 players by that point, and had raised his blitz rating from 2200 to 2757 over those eight games.
Round seven was a jaw-dropper. Even those that saw it live will want to relive the finish:
LexySexy (2733) – Nouki (2591)
Live Chess, Chess.com, 28 Oct. 2014
A01 Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack, Modern Variation
The point is that 27...f6 is met by 28. Rh8+ Kf7 29. Nd6+ and 27...Kg8 by the simple 28. Rah1. The elegance of two pieces defeating an army and extra queen left the in-game chat buzzing for several minutes.
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