Shamkir, Round 7: Caruana Misses a Big Chance
There were two decisive results in the antepenultimate round of the Vugar Gashimov memorial tournament in Shamkir, and there should have been three or even four.
There was only one non-game in the round, and surprisingly it wasn't the all-Azeri match between Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Eltaj Safarli. Why exactly this was a real game while all of the other intra-national games featuring the home players were short, effortless draws is a mystery to me, but Mamedyarov came to play. Unfortunately for Safarli, he played a very poor game and was in trouble after just 12 moves. Mamedyarov dominated for a long time, but his knight misadventure 32.Nc6 and 33.Nd8 gave Safarli a couple of chances to save the game. Perhaps due to time pressure, he didn't succeed, and Mamedyarov was winning easily by the end of the time control.
The one short draw was instead between Sergey Karjakin and Teimour Radjabov, and there wasn't much to see there. The other two draws were full of life, however, and that includes the game between Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri. Caruana entered the round half a point ahead, and with a win the tournament would have been on ice. The players seemed to be prepared almost to move 30, but then the adventures started. Giri's foolhardy 31st move exposed his king to grave danger, and he was very fortunate that Caruana didn't venture Qf7 on either move 35 or 37. (Time pressure?) Luckily for Giri, Caruana allowed a threefold repetition, and the question of first place remains open.
The other draw was less significant for the top places, but was an interesting battle all the same. Pentala Harikrishna managed to draw with Rauf Mamedov, but despite having the white pieces he was in trouble for a long time and probably lost at one or two moments.
Finally, in the battle of the tailenders Pavel Eljanov escaped the cellar by defeating Hou Yifan, who is now in last place half a point behind Eljanov and Safarli. Eljanov played very aggressively and it paid off, and the game finished with an attractive, study-like win.
The two decisive games, plus Caruana-Giri, are here (with my comments).
The round 8 pairings look like this:
- Giri (5) - Hou Yifan (2)
- Mamedov (3) - Eljanov (2.5)
- Radjabov (3) - Harikrishna (3.5)
- Safarli (2.5) - Karjakin (4)
- Caruana (5.5) - Mamedyarov (4)
Reader Comments (4)
"none of the other intra-national games featuring the home players were short, effortless draws".
You obviously mean "all of the other intra-national games" [DM: Yep, will fix that in a moment, thanks.], which may well be too harsh, at least surficially: Mamedov-Radjabov may have been a non-game, but not that short in terms of mutual thinking time. Safarli-Mamedov looked like a full-fledged KID, where the final repetition may be objectively best. Both played rather quickly, but "preparation ending in a draw" also can happen between players from different countries. Radjabov-Safarli was a topical Grunfeld (though a nowadays rare line) where tactical flurries led to a dead-equal rook endgame. Mamedyarov-Mamedov: solid play from black, white couldn't achieve anything - also played quickly from both, but also finishing with a logical repetition. Radjabov-Mamedyarov: theoretically relevant in a Caro-Kann sideline, while also mainly blitzed out. I also wrote "Azeris always draw against each other", but it was a bit in jest. The final will to win may have been lacking, and it's hard for them to surprise each other. In part, there may have been little effort during the game, but still some efforts devoted to preparation - at least not all clear whether both players knew the result before the start of the game.
In Mamedyarov-Safarli, the "cute" 37.-Kh8! 38.Bxe6 Rh2+! 39.Kxh2 Qd2+ followed by a queen sacrifice and stalemate could have been mentioned - a resource regularly occurring in (chess24) tactical exercises, but not that often in a real game.
Caruana-Giri: Caruana still had 23 minutes at the end of the game (move 38, i.e. before the time control), having spent only 3 1/2 minutes on 37.Qd3+ (blitzing out the previous repetition). Before, the first long thought by both was on move 24: 24.Rb1 (27 minutes) 24.-Ne3 (13 minutes) - so this looks like end of preparation. All clock times from the chess24 live transmission, Dennis' criterion for 'likely end of preparation' rather seems to be "when they stopped finding and playing the best moves"(!?).
[DM: Well, it was something of a guess, but I should say that the beginning of time spent on thought doesn't necessarily mean the first move out of prep. Sometimes everything has been memorized cold up to a certain point, and after that it's a matter of reconstructing one's knowledge and making sure to get it right.]
I was surprised Capuana didn't play for the win - he had 27 minutes on the clock when he could have played Qf7.
'Why exactly this was a real game while none of the other intra-national games featuring the home players were short, effortless draws is a mystery to me' - it seems to me that you want to remove 'none of' from that sentence.
[DM: Correct: I goofed that up. (It will be fixed momentarily.)]
Otherwise, thank you for good reporting and interesting commentary from this (and other!) tournament(s).
According to the press conference after the game, Caruana's problem in finding the win against Giri was with the line 35.Qf7 Qa4! (rather than Qxb2 - preventing Rc6+ and preparing checks along the 4th rank in various lines) - and here White has to spot 36.Kh2!! (from what I understood, without spotting it Caruana was afraid he might actually end up worse).
Btw, in his loss against Mamedyarov today it looks like Caruana missed a drawing resource that also hinges on a quiet king move - 40.Qb4 (instead of Qg4+) b2 41.h6+ Kxh6 42.Qf8+ Kh5 43.Kg3!