FIDE Grand Prix Hamburg: Vachier-Lagrave is the only winner of the day
Hamburg is known as a hub of chess activity. The city in northern Germany hosts one of the largest clubs in Europe that has its clubhouse and a long tradition dating back to 1830. Additionally, the Chess in Schools project has been successfully supported by the local associations and authorities for decades. One result of these steady efforts is the annual “Alsterufer” match with more than 100 schools and nearly 4000 kids participating. One of the winning teams of this annual match, consisting of eight children, was invited onto the stage to open the first game of the second round of the FIDE Grand Prix. Vachier-Lagrave does it again Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is the only winner of the day. The French grandmaster chose his beloved Grünfeld Defence with Black against Veselin Topalov who opted for a sideline which transposes the position into a Benoni-like-structure. In a highly complex middlegame, the Bulgarian grandmaster used one of his trademark exchange sacrifices to complicate matters even more. In time trouble, both players attacked the enemy’s king and risked everything. Topalov committed the final mistake on move 36. He could have sacrificed a piece and hide his king in the corner, but this was extremely difficult to spot. Instead, he allowed his opponent to win very important b-pawn. In the end, Vachier-Lagrave found a lovely combination to force a queen exchange and promote his passed pawn. Yu Yangyi misses a possible win Yu Yangyi demonstrated a fantastic preparation once again. In the main line of the Petrov’s Defence, which the Chinese grandmaster often uses himself, he presented an interesting novelty on move twelve, which immediately put pressure on his opponent. Duda spent about an hour for the next six moves but landed in an inferior position. Yu Yangyi played a perfect game until 27th move. In a heavy piece endgame, he had a strong passed pawn on e6 and could dominate the situation with a quiet queen move. Instead, he lost two tempi with unnecessary rook moves. Duda was able to activate his queen and force a draw by a perpetual. “When I played my rook to e5 I completely missed that he can activate his queen”, Yu Yangyi confessed after the game. Alexander Grischuk and David Navara followed the main line in the Catalan Opening that the Russian grandmaster used to beat Leinier Dominguez Perez in the third round of the World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk. After exchanging three minor pieces, Grischuk pinned his hopes on slight space advantage and a better minor piece, but Navara’s position remained solid. Alexander spent a lot of time, but he couldn’t find a way to put Black under serious pressure. Navara countered with a well-timed centre push, and the position soon petered out into an equal queen endgame. In a battle of generations, the Russians Daniil Dubov and Peter Svidler discussed an important theoretical line of the Grünfeld Defence. White started to build up a strong centre but Svidler timely undermined it with typical counters even at the cost of a pawn. Afterwards, both players agreed that objectively White should hold an advantage. Over the board, Dubov wasn´t able to demonstrate this statement to be the case. With his time running down, Dubov decided to avoid unnecessary risks and offered a draw on move 23. Round 2, game 1 results: Veselin Topalov – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 0-1Alexander Grischuk – David Navara 1/2-1/2Daniil Dubov – Peter Svidler 1/2-1/2Yu Yangyi – Jan-Krzysztof Duda 1/2-1/2 Official website and LIVE broadcast: https://worldchess.com FIDE Press officer for the event: Georgios Souleidis Official Photographer: Valeria Gordienko World Chess contact: media@worldchess.com Photos are available for the press from the following link to Dropbox. Leading partners supporting the FIDE World Chess Grand Prix Series 2019 include: Algorand as the Exclusive Blockchain PartnerPhosAgro as the Official Strategic PartnerKaspersky as the Official Cybersecurity PartnerPella Sietas Shipyard as Official PartnerPrytek as the Technology Transfer Partner
Superbet Rapid & Blitz: Korobov takes the lead
After another day of rapid, a surprising new leader has emerged. Wildcard Anton Korobov is not well known in the chess elite but he is the highest-rated rapid player in the tournament and now he is leading the tournament. The Ukrainian had a phenomenal day defeating Viswanathan Anand and Wesley So, while Anish Giri stumbled in the fifth round and lost to another wildcard, Vladislav Artemiev. Tomorrow is the final day of the rapid as the tournament will move on to the blitz portion. Round 4 Anish Giri maintained his lead with a win over Le Quang Liem in a complicated Rossolimo Variation of the Sicilian. The Dutch player’s extra bishop against his opponent’s three pawns was too powerful in the middlegame, allowing him to unleash an attack against his opponent’s weak dark squares. Coming to the round, there was a tie for second place between Anton Korobov, Levon Aronian and Viswanathan Anand. Korobov separated himself from the pack by defeating Anand in 27 moves by pushing his “g” pawn down the board and creating a mating net around his opponent’s king. Aronian saved his game against Vladislav Artemiev, who wasn’t able to find a win with only seconds left on the clock. The Armenian star was joined by Fabiano Caruana in a tie for third place after the latter defeated Sergey Karjakin in a marathon 99 move encounter. Wesley So bounced back from a tough first day with a win over Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in a topsy turvy game. Round 5 Giri suffered his first loss of the tournament against Artemiev after he went pawn grabbing with his queen, leaving his king vulnerable. Artemiev’s attack played itself out, forcing his opponent to resign ten moves later. This round 5 result blew the tournament wide open, allowing Korobov to catch up with the Dutch GM after a comfortable draw against Mamedyarov. Caruana joined the top duo after finding a beautiful checkmating pattern with his knight pair while leaving his queen en prise. Anand put himself only a point behind the leaders after converting his extra pawn against Aronian. The game between Karjakin and So ended in a 25 move draw. Round 6 Korobov described his middle game position against So as strategically lost in the postgame interview, thus forcing him to seek complications. So let his advantage slip away then allowed a big turnaround in the game by leaving his back rank weak. So resigned after realizing that his only options were either parting with his queen or allowing a checkmate. Giri – Anand game was quite balanced, but the draw put the long-time leader a full point behind Korobov. Caruana wasn’t able to keep pace and lost to Artemiev, by making the same mistake Giri did in the previous round – putting his queen out of play and leaving his king alone surrounded by the enemy pieces. Aronian and Karjakin drew Mamedyarov and Le Quang Liem respectively in quite uneventful games. Official site Livestream:GrandChessTour.org Photos:Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour and Spectrum StudiosCredits available on Flickr.