Shamkir, Round 2: Eljanov Leads with 2/2
Pavel Eljanov is one of those players who is either super-hot or (by super-GM standards) mediocre; he rarely seems to lurk around 3rd place in elite tournaments. It's still early in Shamkir, but he's off to a great start with 2/2, today defeating Pentala Harikrishna with the black pieces. Harikrishna had an edge out of the opening, but his decision to trade queens on move 17 was a mistake. Black's position was completely safe after that, and he could get to work using his positional pluses afterwards (starting with a beautiful outpost square on c4). It was a long time before Eljanov was winning though - that only happened after checks on moves 48 and 49 let Black's king play too great a role.
The day's other winner was Veselin Topalov, who also won with Black, against Radoslaw Wojtaszek. Wojtaszek took too many liberties with his king, and paid the price.
The other games - Adams-So, Mamedyarov-Karjakin (which was not a real game between the two good friends), and Kramnik-Radjabov - were all drawn, with no one coming close to a win.
Round 3 Pairings:
- Topalov (1.5) - Kramnik (1)
- So (.5) - Wojtaszek (.5)
- Karjakin (1) - Adams (1)
- Eljanov (2) - Mamedyarov (1.5)
- Radjabov (.5) - Harikrishna (.5)
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