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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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We'll have ample chess games to observe this weekend as the Tbilisi FIDE Grand Prix commences Saturday as well. The very strong field includes Grischuk (2), Giri (4), MVL (10), Mamedyarov (13), Svidler (19), Andreikin (21), Radjabov (23), Jakovenko (24), Dominguez (27), Tomashevsky (33), Kasimdzhanov (43), and Jobava (50). This is the 3rd and final Grand Prix for 4 of these participants and is particularly important for Andreikin and Mamedyarov who certainly have legitimate chances to qualify for the 2 Candidate spots, currently sitting 3rd and 5th respectively. You can see the composite standings at the following Wikipedia link.
February 15 Round 1
February 16 Round 2
February 17 Round 3
February 18 Round 4
February 19 Free Day
February 20 Round 5
February 21 Round 6
February 22 Round 7
February 23 Round 8
February 24 Free Day
February 25 Round 9
February 26 Round 10
February 27 Round 11
Games begin at 15:00 local time which is 6 a.m. Toronto/Montreal. There is a +9 hour time difference.
There are eleven rounds in the round robin tournament with the time control of 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, with 60 minutes being added at that point and then each player will be allotted 15 minutes after the second time control and an increment of 30 seconds per move will be allowed from move 61 onwards. There will be English language commentary provided by Georgian GM Tornike Sanikidze.
The prize money offered by host city is 120,000 Euros. The winner of Grand Prix in Tbilisi will get 20,000 Euros.
Time control: 120 minutes for the first forty moves, 60 minutes for the next twenty moves and then each player will be allotted 15 minutes after the second time control and an increment of 30 seconds per move will be allowed from move 61 onwards.
The players cannot draw a game by agreement before black’s 30th move. A claim for a draw before black’s 30th move is permitted only through the Chief Arbiter (or his Deputy) in the cases of perpetual check or threefold repetition.
The players are expected to cooperate reasonably with the media. General interviews with them have to be arranged through the FIDE Press Officer, the same day or the next day after the end of the event.
The players are required to make themselves available for short interviews immediately after each game. All winners and medalists are obliged to attend the final press conference after the event has ended and to provide an exclusive interview for the FIDE website, if requested by the FIDE Press Officer. Players violating these rules will be subjected to the penalties mentioned in the event regulations.
While he may well be the hottest player on the planet, Giri is not a good bet tomorrow at 11/5. He's only beaten MVL once in 11 opportunities (2 losses and 8 draws). He's also only plus 1, minus 3, equal 1 at quicker time controls for a composite plus 2, minus 5, equal 9 score. Those are clearly not 11/5 numbers (:
Grischuk said this was one of the tensest games of his life!
The attempted Ragozin Queen's Gambit quickly transposed into the ultra sharp Noteboom Slav defence, "one of the most exciting opening in chess", as the Russian player put it.
Black appeared to be struggling to complete the opening, as "15...Ne4 was played many times but after that he didn't know what to do next."
White was also burning the clock, but he managed to "trick his opponent who expected 19.Qb3 Kh8 when 20.Bxe6 is failing to 20...Ndxc5 21.dxc5 Nxc5 22.Qc4 Bxf3!". The game saw the neat 19.Bb3 instead.
Kasimdzhanov created significant pressure against the a5-pawn, while black was trying to get something going on the king's flank. It looks like white dropped the advantage by missing the critical 25.Qd3, as shown by Grischuk later.
The game continuation allowed black to develop nasty counterplay on the first two ranks, which coupled with huge time trouble ultimately led to white's blunder and defeat.
Certainly the most complex match of the day. It started with a rare sideline in the King's Indian Defence, as Tomashevsky admitted "it is always difficult to prepare for Jobava".
White continued with principled positional moves and obtained a slight advantage. But on move 15 he decided to open the center despite correctly predicting black's knight sacrifice on e5.
The game became immensely complicated with many sophisticated move orders, transpositions and tactical nuances. The players gave their best to explore the lines during the press conference, but only the additional analysis will shed the light into correct evaluation.
Essentially, Jobava went down because he missed the tricky cross-pin with 21.Bb2. He continued fighting with two pawns for a piece, but Tomashevsky was up to the task and converted the advantage into full point.
Mamedyarov defended with the Najdorf Sicilian "because he played it whole last year and exclusively in the Candidates Tournament". The Azeri knew that Vachier-Lagrave was great expert in this opening, but he believed in his preparation.
Both players analysed the opening in depth. Mamedyarov proposed 21.Ra4 Qb6 22.Bb5+ as possible line, which "probably leads to a draw". Vachier-Lagrave answered that he looked at the game continuation 21.Kd1.
Black felt that he could obtain good play and refused to repeat the moves. White appeared to be passive but solid.
Vachier-Lagrave however erred by pushing the pawn to f4, missing black's 29...Rg3 and 31...Qf2.
Mamedyarov commented that white is practically lost at this point, because his pieces are too passive and pawns are too weak.
White laid his hopes on breaking with e5, but the advance came too late as black already collected the rook from c4. White resigned immediately after the time control.
In the Ragozin Queen's Gambit the main battle revolved around the central d4-square. White blinked first and pushed 14.d5, but black was ready to challenge the center with 15...c6.
Giri proposed 16.Bg5 as possible improvement, but Svidler didn't like the look of 16...cxd5 17.Bxf6 (17.exd5 Ng6 18.Ne4 Be7) gxf6 18.Nxd5 Nxd5 19.exd5 e4 with idea Re5.
White expected to trade everything down to a draw, but he missed that the intended 21.Qd1 would have been met with 21...Rc4! (idea Rxd4), when the position is simply falling apart.
Also 22.Bxb7 doesn't work because black has simple 22...Ne2+ 23.Qxe2 Rxe2 24.Rxe2 Rb8.
Svidler run into huge time trouble and couldn't find the right way to defend inferior position. At the press conference the players suggested 29.Rd4 or 29.Qd5 as best to continue the fight.
With this victory Giri crossed the 2800-elo mark on the live ratings list.
Of the 5 decisive games in the first two rounds, four yesterday and one today, four of the wins have come with the Black pieces. Surely Andras Adorjan, author of 'Black is OK!', 'Black is Still OK!', and 'Black is OK Forever!' must be smiling. I note, with a smile myself, that Adorjan's Wikipedia entry says he used the games of Tony Miles and Alexander Morozevich, two of my longtime favourites, as a "source of inspiration".
In the Queen's Indian Defence, Jobava made a "strategically risky decision to take 8...Nxd2 and allow white to seize more space", but he elaborated that in the resulting middlegame all three results were possible.
White cleared the files on the queenside in hope of breaking through, while black was building up his play on the kingside.
Radjabov explained that one of the key moments was on move 23 when he had possibility of taking the bishop on c8, but after the long lines the resulting positions were very difficult to evaluate.
Following the game continuation 23.Nc6 black had to find the only move 24...Bg4 to trade down to a roughly equal ending.
Jobava still had to be precise and transfer the king to d8 in order to permanently secure the weak pawn and finally get a draw.
Tbisili 2015
Round 2, Feb. 16
Radjabov, Teimour – Jobava, Baadur
E18 Queen's Indian, Old Main Line
The French player repeated the Gruenfeld Indian setup that he used against Navara at the Tromso Chess Olympiad. He attempted to improve the play with 12...Be6.
White responded with the principled advance of the b-pawn. But Vachier-Lagrave went head-in with the risky-looking 16...c5. He shared later that he calculated all lines ten moves ahead and that he was certain the position was holding.
In the resulting ending black had his pawn advanced all the way to a3, confining white rook to the a-file. Giri explained that his only chance was to advance the kingside pawns deep into black's position and try to place the opponent into zugzwang.
Black prevented this with timely 32...h5 and the game was soon drawn.
Kasimdzhanov admitted that he was surprised with an early 2.b3, but he believes it was a very interesting development.
He proceeded with Lasker setup, but later on he made some inaccuracies - namely he didn't like 12...e5. The point is that b3-b4 advance in many lines is very annoying for black.
Still, black got a good game going and the knight sacrifice gave him strong central pressure.
Mamedyarov believes that 27.Qxe5, giving the material back, would have given him equal game. He also pointed that 32.Nd4 with idea Nc2 was possible. Later, he planned 35.Bf3, but ...Qxh3+ 36.Kg1 f5! would have been a huge trouble.
Black proceeded to convert the advantage into full point.
Tbilisi 2015
Round 2, Feb. 16
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar – Kasimdzhanov, Rustam
A12 English, New York Defensive System
The match started as Queen's Gambit Exchange variation where Andreikin was standing very solid, as Grischuk explained later at the press conference.
Grischuk added that he made a mistake with 15.b3, which was a hasty reaction to the fact that immediate 15.e4 fails to ...Nxe4 16.bxe7 Nxc3 17.Bxd8 Nxd1 18.Bh4 Nxb2 19.Qb3 Nc4. He said that the regular move 15.Bf2 was better.
Andreikin proposed 14.e4 push one move earlier, as 14...Nxe4 15.fxe4 Bxh4 16.exd5 cxd5 17.Rf5 is strong attack for white because castling is prevented 17...0-0 18.Rh5!
Later in the middlegame Andreikin felt very confident because he believed there were many tactical resources in the fight against the white center. Grischuk showed one such line 28...Rexe5 29.Qxe5 Rxe5 30.dxe5 Qc2, which should lead to perpetual check. Andreikin also said that 32...g5 was interesting.
Grischuk criticised black's decision to exchange the queens, arguing that otherwise the position was good enough to hold. According to him, the resulting rook ending is very dangerous for black.
Andreikin said he wanted to at least trade the queens if he was already dropping a pawn.
Grischuk finally proposed 45.Kg3 as better try to play for a win, delaying the e6-push for the time being. He rushed with 45.e6, missing that black has 51...Kd4 as defending resource. The game was soon drawn.
Tbilisi 2015
Round 2, Feb. 16
Grischuk, Alexander – Andreikin, Dmitry
D35 QGD, Exchange, Positional Line (5…c6)
The longest game of the day started as an interesting Ruy Lopez where black combined plans from different systems. Svidler said he played this setup many times with both colours. But he also admitted that his play had been faulty and that he should search for improvements.
"It was obvious that white will make a series of moves with his knight from f3, but somehow I missed the strong 19.Nec2", Svidler said later. Meanwhile, legendary champion Nona Gaprindashvili, who actively participated in analysis in the press center, correctly guessed most of Dominguez's moves, including Svidler's nightmare Nec2.
White obtained big positional advantage and black was forced to sacrifice an exchange. Svidler continued to defend tenaciously.
Dominguez had the upper hand until he missed the convincing 52.Qe8+ Kh7 53.h5, as pointed by the commentators WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and GM Tornike Sanikidze.
Black succeeded in trading all the pawns to finally earn a draw on move 78.
Tbilisi 2015
Round 2, Feb. 16
Dominguez Perez, Leinier – Svidler, Peter
C92 Ruy Lopez, Closed, Flohr-Zaitsev System
I see MVL lost that game. In that opening, if white doesn't like the line with the move 6.... Ng4 there is the option of playing 7. Bc1. Often black responds with Nf6 and then 8. f3 followed shortly by Be3 when it can't be attacked by the knight. I've played that once or twice.
Last edited by Gary Ruben; Monday, 16th February, 2015, 08:51 PM.
Reason: speling.
Of the 5 decisive games in the first two rounds, four yesterday and one today, four of the wins have come with the Black pieces. Surely Andras Adorjan, author of 'Black is OK!', 'Black is Still OK!', and 'Black is OK Forever!' must be smiling. I note, with a smile myself, that Adorjan's Wikipedia entry says he used the games of Tony Miles and Alexander Morozevich, two of my longtime favourites, as a "source of inspiration".
Adorjan can continue smiling as Black attained 2 more wins today, Jakovenko over Jobava (these two have only drawn 2 of their 10 encounters with Jakovenko winning 6 of the 8 decisive games) and Mamedyarov (who has won his 2 Black games and lost his 1 White game) over Andreikin. Grischuk spoiled Black's near unblemished record with a zeitnot collapse (29 seconds for his last 11 moves, with no increments, to the 1st time control) to Tomashevsky, who had previously never beaten Grischuk in 11 opportunities (6 losses and 5 draws). Tomashevsky is now clear 1st with 2.5/3, a 1/2 point ahead of Giri, Jakovenko, and Mamedyarov.
Kasimdzhanov joked that he spent more time preparing than actually playing the game. He attempted to follow white's play from Anand-Svidler, Moscow 2009, but Giri deviated and forced the exchange of the queens.
White rushed to complete the development, but black forced his hand with 13...Nb4. White refused to return the pawn and the game finished in a draw after repetition.
Jobava repeated the radical idea of pushing 11.h4, as he already did in 2008 against Ivanchuk. Jakovenko was not aware of this older game and proceeded with normal development.
White had to find the way to justify his aggressive approach. Jakovenko proposed 15.f4 Rd8 16.Kh1 Qb4 17.Rc1 as one of the possible lines.
On the next move Jobava intended 16.Bb5, but then he changed his mind and simply blundered the d4-pawn. Jakovenko showed 16.Nb5 a6 17.b3!? and 16.Bb5 a6 17. Bxc6 Bxc6 18. Nxc6 bxc6 19. Qxc6 Rc8 as alternatives.
It took a few precise moves from black to finish off his opponent.
I haven’t seen the name Soultanbeieff in a long time. Victor Ivanovich Soultanbéieff b.1895, d.1972 was born in Ukraine. In World War I, he fought in the Russian army. After the Bolshevik Revolution, in 1920, he moved to Gallipoli with the army of Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel. At the end of 1921 he sought asylum in Belgium. After a short stay in Brussels he moved to Liege, where he would stay for the rest of his life.
A good pub bet – What did chess players Victor Ivanovich Soultanbeieff and Alberic O’Kelly de Galway have in common? Answer – both were Belgian masters.
Both were remarkable correspondence players as well. Ah well, back to our sheep..
Vachier-Lagrave - Dominguez 1/2
This match saw Breyer Ruy Lopez, which became very popular in the recent years and is regular choice of the world champion Magnus Carlsen.
Black's position looked a bit shaky in the middlegame, but somehow he was holding in all lines.
Dominguez didn't like the look of 23...hxg5 24. exf6 Bxf6 25.Qf2 Nd7 26.e5, but post-mortem analysis proved that black is staying intact.
28.Rae1 was played to prevent ...Be5, to which would follow the quite dangerous 29.Rxe5 dxe5 30.d6.
Different attempts, like 34.Rxd6 Rxb2 35.Rxe6 Rxe6 36.Bd5 Rbe2 would also lead to a draw, which anyway was the final outcome on move 40.
Another mind-boggling game with Grischuk as co-star. He played a novel idea (10...c6) in the King's Indian Defence, but then spent around one hour on the next couple of moves.
Accepting the pawn 11.dxc6 Ndc5 was too dangerous, so Tomashevsky decided to follow the regular plans. At one point he changed his mind and retreated the queen back to square one (15.Qd1), but this was not an offer to repeat the moves, rather he was "preventing a5-a4 and checking what black was actually doing".
The principled continuation was 15.h4 a4 (15...Qxh4 16.g5 with 17.Rh1) 16. h5 Bd7 17.Qh3 cxd5 18.cxd5 b5 19.Rh1. Exactly this was the line that was bothering Sasha, forcing him to spend lots of time to find the antidote.
Tomashevsky sacrificed an exchange and gradually pushed black pieces into corner. The position was difficult to evaluate, but certainly much more easier to play with white.
Grischuk never managed to bring his forces back into game, and coupled with a terrible zeitnot, his game simply collapsed. Later he checked the engines and saw that 28...Qe7 29.Nb6 Nc7 was better, leading to a "totally crazy position".
(ChessVibes) - Spending 51 minutes on 14...Ndc5 was asking for trouble. Time trouble, that is. Grischuk is known for playing at a high level with little time on the clock, but today he couldn't hold his position together.
What German Zeit words did we learn at University?
Zeitgeist – Spirit of the Age, Zeitnot – Time trouble, Uhrzeit – Time, Abflugzeit/Ankunftszeit – Departure and Arrival Times. And there you are!
Online Comments
- We might have to face the real possibility of Anand v Carlsen 3
Tomashevsky's win over Mamedyarov (whose all 4 games have ended in Black wins) clearly establishes him as one of the Candidates favourites. His 3.5/4 leaves him a full point ahead of Giri, Grischuk (who beat Jobava today), and Jakovenko. If Tomashevsky wins Tbilisi, he'll soar past both Caruana and Nakamura in the composite Grand Prix standings.
It seems that it was August 2013 when Evgeny Tomashevsky came to the world’s attention at the FIDE World Cup in Tromso. His match against Alexander Morozevich went to blitz and Evgeny won.
From the Official Site:
Mamedyarov - Tomashevsky 0-1
Black defended with the Chebanenko Slav and white employed the idea of world champion Magnus Carlsen from the game with Hikaru Nakamura in Gashimov Memorial. The point is that after 6.Be2 h6 black no longer has Bg6 at disposal and white can force the bishop exchange on d3.
Mamedyarov later said that if Carlsen can play this way, it doesn't mean that other players can follow the same steps. He now believes that the line does not suit his style. Finally, he said that when Carlsen's games are shown, a TV-like scroll should warn the audience "do not try this at home".
Tomashevsky said he played "the tricky" 14...Re8 because he didn't like the look of 14...a4 15.b4 Nd6 16.c5 Nc4 17.Bc1, and wanted to see what will white do next.
Mamedyarov added that after 18.a4 white is slightly better, but then he missed 20...b5. He understood that the trend is shifting and believes that from then on he should have played to salvage a draw.
But during the match white was still showing great ambition (22.c5), which only allowed "black knight to find a good square (c6) for the first time in the game" (Tomashevsky comment).
The Russian suggested 22.cxd5 Qxd5 23.Rb1 as more restrained approach. He added that from then on white can perhaps hold with perfect play, but the black position was just much easier to develop.
Immediately after the time control white committed a grave error 41.Rb1 and was soon forced to resign
Svidler vs Vachier-Lagrave was interesting from an opening theoretical perspective, as it was an encounter between two of the world's greatest experts in the Grünfeld.
GM Peter Svidler said that he's single-handedly trying to revive the 8.h3 variation, although he didn't know why. “Desperation?” was GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's explanation!
The French GM had prepared deeply, sacrificed an exchange and then already knew where to put his pieces. At the end it was White who had to be careful.
Tbilisi 2015
Round 4, Feb. 18
Svidler, Peter – Vachier Lagrave, Maxime
D85 Grunfeld, Modern Exchange Variation
(chess.com) - GM Alexander Grischuk moved up to shared second in the standings. The world number-two defeated tail-ender GM Baadur Jobava. It looked easy, but Grischuk again was in time trouble at the end.
He said that he didn't like his opponent's mini-plan of trading his bishop on f3 and putting his pawns on light squares, but admitted that Black was still rather solid. White increased his advantage with some good maneuvers and when he got in d4-d5!, it was practically over.
Tomorrow is a rest day. When action resumes on Friday the matchups will be:
MVL-Radjabov, Kasimdzhanov-Svidler, Andreikin-Dominguez, Tomashevsky-Giri, Jobava-Mamedyarov and Jakovenko-Grischuk.
________
Tomshevsky now has a 31% chance to win Tbilisi with a clear first place (for the full 170 Grand Prix Points), and a 17% chance of finishing in the top two of the final Grand Prix standings (up from only 2% before Tbilisi began).
Tomshevsky now has a 31% chance to win Tbilisi with a clear first place (for the full 170 Grand Prix Points), and a 17% chance of finishing in the top two of the final Grand Prix standings (up from only 2% before Tbilisi began).
I would surmise that those Tomashevsky numbers increase significantly after today's results, especially the 14-move (boo!) draw between Jakovenko and Grischuk and the 51-move draw between Tomashevsky and Giri. The latter two have now met 6 times and every single time the point has been split. The draw also deprived Giri of his 2800 status (2799.3), albeit I suspect he'll be back soon enough - perhaps even tomorrow when he has White and is the prohibitive (33/50!) betting favourite against Jobava (who had a very entertaining win against Mamedyrov today). That said, Jobava might just be worth a flyer at 17/2 (:
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