Beijing Grand Prix: A Look Back at Some Highlights
Yes, it has been a while and we're on to the next big event. But think about this way: the Grand Prix tournament in Beijing hasn't yet been covered in a ChessBase Magazine, an issue of New in Chess Magazine or Yearbook, the Informant, Chess Life or any of a host of print periodicals. So it's still timely...ish. Without any further ado then, some thoughts on and facts about the Beijing tournament and the overall Grand Prix.
* First things first: the tournament was won by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, with seven points in 11 games. He lost two games, which is a bit much for the average tournament victor, but five wins overcame and it and were enough to finish half a point ahead of Alexander Grischuk.
* The biggest winner was Veselin Topalov. Thanks to his last round win over Alexander Morozevich, he finished tied for third (with Peter Leko), and that guaranteed him overall victory in the Grand Prix series. That means he is automatically seeded into the next Candidates. Right now Mamedyarov is second overall, but he isn't playing in the final Grand Prix tournament and can be caught. If either Grischuk or Fabiano Caruana wins that last tournament, that player will leapfrog Mamedyarov and take the second automatic qualifying spot in the Candidates.
* There were some unusual occurrences in the tournament. One is that with the almost mandatory exception of Peter Leko (who scored a very Lekovian +1 =12) everyone in the tournament won at least one game and lost at least one game. Also unusual: the distance from 3rd place to 11th was all of one point. Topalov won in the last round and tied for third; had he lost he would have been tied for next-to-last.
* Sergey Karjakin shot out of the gate with three consecutive wins. Intriguingly, he said in an interview that he wasn't in good form, and either he was very astute or he was adept at making self-fulfilling prophecies. He drew in rounds 4 and 5, and then lost three in a row to fall to 50%, where he stayed the rest of the way.
* Boris Gelfand's tournament was very similar, but in reverse. He lost in rounds 1, 3 and 4 (the first two games with White), but held things together and made a comeback. He won in rounds 8 and 10 and missed at least two clear-cut wins in round 9. It wasn't a great tournament for him, but it was a good comeback.
* Another surprising feature of the tournament was the number of miniatures. In tournaments of this level it's rare that there are any decisive games of 25 moves or fewer; this time there were three, and two other games that didn't miss by much.
* It was an impressively hard-fought tournament. The Sofia rules were in effect as usual, but they had little real deterrent effect. Players who wanted to draw found ways to repeat or swap the relevant pieces as speedily as possible. Despite this, a good competitive spirit prevailed, and 30 of the 66 games had a winner, while the average game went a respectable 45-46 moves.
Here are some of the more interesting games and moments from the tournament. Enjoy.
Reader Comments (2)
Amazingly, Gelfand wasn't in (extreme) time trouble before move 34 against Wang Hao. I was watching live and he spent at least two or three minutes on 34.-Qf8? - I would think that he saw -Nc3 but didn't like something or got confused: in the Chessbomb live chat, FLindsay speculated that he considered 35.Qh5 g6?! (35.-Qb1+ 36.Kh2 Qxf5 37.Qe8+ Qf8 seems cleaner) 36.Nh6+ Kg7 37.Qe5+ Kh6 38.g4?! too messy, but this simply runs into 38.-Qxg4. Did Gelfand suffer from a remnant image (in German "Restbild')? Both variations only work because the knight is no longer on e4 blocking the fourth rank and the b1-f5 diagonal.
At the very end, Gelfand was short of time - but with a 30 second increment he could have given a few checks to gain time on the clock and actually win the game. Or was he so short of time that he couldn't play the "long" 83.-Qg2-g8+ without flagging?
Against Mamedyarov, it seems that Giri actually did mix up his preparation. Chessvibes has this quote from the press conference: "I cannot really explain what happened. I remembered there was Rad8 in this line but now I’m not sure where exactly. I would automatically play 15…Bd5 if I was not so concentrated on my preparation."
"That means he is automatically seeded into the next Candidates" . He has qualified by winning the qualifier!!!