The fourth leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series organized by World Chess started in the Notre Dame Center Jerusalem on December, 11. Since all eight games ended in a draw all sixteen players keep chances to advance in the next round.
After three major tournaments in Moscow, Riga, and Hamburg earlier this year, the grandmasters arrived in Jerusalem to compete in the final leg of FIDE Grand Prix. This part of the series will draw the line under the season 2019 and designate two participants for the following Candidates Tournament 2020.
The prize fund in each leg of the Grand Prix amounts to €130,000, with an additional €280,000 for the top 10 finishers in the overall standings. Thus, the total prize fund of the FIDE Grand Prix amounts to a total of €800,000. The major goal for the 21 participants, however, is to finish in the top two at the end of the Series and earn a spot in the Candidates Tournament. This event will then determine the challenger of Magnus Carlsen in the World Championship match.
The official Opening Ceremony was held at the Notre Dame Center Jerusalem. State officials, FIDE representatives, key members of the local community and, of course, and all participants assembled in a hall together with other chess devotees to share the moment of the start. Chief Arbiter Almog Burstein drew lots at the technical meeting.
The games Nepomniachtchi - Gelfand and Harikrishna - Karjakin finished after less than one hour of play with Karjakin and Gelfand, who had Black pieces expressing their satisfaction with the outcome.
Ian Nepomniachtchi went for a well-known theoretical line in Sicilian Anti-Sveshnikov but according to Gelfand, his opponent misplayed it, so the final position was very dry and none of the sides had real chances to play for a win.
“First of all, I'm happy to play in Jerusalem Grand Prix tournament as Grand Prix events are one of my favorite tournaments. I had so many memorable games there. It's also especially nice to play in Jerusalem in front of the local public" said Boris Gelfand after the game.
Pentala Harikrishna opted for a solid Ruy Lopez Berlin against Sergey Karjakin, and after grandmasters traded most of the pieces, the draw was agreed on move 21.
Veselin Topalov chose to open with 1.c4 against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave after he had unsuccessfully tried 1.e4 and 1.d4 in their previous mini-matches. “It was a good choice, as at least I managed not to lose the game. It's a good start, compared to my usual first matches” Veselin noted in the postgame interview.
A symmetrical English was played and, in fact, the former FIDE World Champion got an advantage right after the opening. He put a lot of pressure on his opponent today and the French Grandmaster, who came directly from the Grand Chess Tour finals in London, had to defend “a very suspicious position”. However, Veselin missed his opponent's counterplay with a piece sacrifice, which turned out to be good enough to maintain balance in the game.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov recalled the last stage of Grand Prix in 2017 when he was watching the last game between Jakovenko and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave at home. In case of victory, MVL would have qualified for the Candidates 2018 instead of Shakhriyar. Jakovenko won that game and helped Mamedyarov to advance to the Candidates 2018. Ironically, Shakhriyar was paired against Dmitry Jakovenko in the first match of the fourth leg of Grand Prix and needs to win the match to keep his chances to play in the Candidates 2020 alive.
Shakhriyar had quite deep preparation in the opening today and remembered the line in the Nimzo-Indian till the endgame. In the post-game interview, he pointed out that 22.Kf1 was a bad move and he had to play Re1, Nf1-Ne3 instead, keeping good wining chances. Dmitry Jakovenko agreed that his position was quite unpleasant and was happy with the outcome.
The Catalan Opening appeared in the game Yu Yangyi vs. Wesley So. The American grandmaster went for a pawn sacrifice and suddenly the position became very complex and tactical. According to Wesley Black had sufficient compensation for equality but he was not sure about pressing for more.
Wang Hao misplayed the opening and let his opponent David Navara to obtain an advantage. David had more active pieces and was trying to use the weakness of the b7-pawn but Wang Hao was defending quite well and managed to hold a draw.
Anish Giri mixed up the move order in the opening and decided to give up an exchange by analogy with the same idea in a different line. Although Anish thought his position was lost after 20.c3 he nevertheless managed to hold it after a long and resilient defense.
As Anish Giri and Wei Yi were the last to finish their encounter, the Dutchman was asked if he thought it would be unfair to lose since all other games were drawn. “That was the only thing that kept me going. I saw that everybody else made a draw. I thought maybe it`s today's magic so I have to try to use it,” Anish confessed.
The participants of the Jerusalem Grand Prix passed on their warm wishes to the former World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who turned 50 on December 11.
Official website and LIVE broadcast: https://worldchess.com
FIDE Press officer for the event: Anastasiya Karlovich
Official Photographer: Niki Riga
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 Partner
PhosAgro as the Official Strategic Partner
Kaspersky as the Official Cybersecurity Partner
Usetech as the partner of the Jerusalem Grand Prix
Prytek as the Technology Transfer Partner
