Tal Memorial: Nepomniachtchi Wins, Giri Second

The pace slowed down at the end of the 2016 Tal Memorial, with every game but one in the last three rounds ending in a draw. (The one exception was Mamedyarov-Kramnik in the last round, won by Mamedyarov.) That allowed Ian Nepomniachtchi to shepherd in his half-point lead to the finish, resulting in a clear first place with six points out of nine rounds, half a point better than Anish Giri's five and a half.

In round 8 Nepomniachtchi had the white pieces against Viswanathan Anand, and in the non-standard positions that arose from the opening (an English) first Nepo was better and then Anand was. The game went only 29 moves, but it was a contentful game. Giri also had white, but failed to achieve anything against Mamedyarov and the game was agreed drawn on move 40.

In the last round the tournament could easily have finished with the players switching positions. Nepomniachtchi was in some trouble against Boris Gelfand until the latter played 37.Ne5. Perhaps Gelfand didn't take seriously the possibility that Black could take on e5 (after trading rooks), but this was not only forced but good. By the time control White's advantage was between minimal and non-existent, and Nepomniachtchi held without any further difficulty.

Even so, Giri had excellent chances to catch up. Despite playing black against Li Chao, he soon equalized in a Nimzo-Indian and then was better and pressing thanks to his superior queenside pawn structure. The critical moment came just after the time control. On move 41 Giri had an important decision to make, and he spent almost 19 minutes on it. Nevertheless, he chose wrongly. Instead of 41...Ne3, Giri would have kept a large, possibly winning advantage with 41...Kf4 or 41...Ne1 (the two moves can lead to the same position). Unfortunately for him, his move surrendered most of his advantage, and his very last move, 46...Nxa5, surrendered the rest, although even more testing moves like 46...Kg3 are likely to result in a rook and knight vs. rook ending - at best.

Final Standings: 

1. Nepomniachtchi 6
2. Giri 5.5
3-4. Aronian, Anand 5
5-8. Svidler, Mamedyarov, Li Chao, Kramnik 4.5
9. Tomashevsky 3.5
10. Gelfand 2

Tal Memorial, Rounds 6 & 7: Nepomniachtchi Back in Front

Round 7 can be dispensed with fairly quickly, as not only were all five games drawn, it doesn't even seem that anyone had even a moderate advantage, except for half a move in the game between Viswanathan Anand and Peter Svidler. After 31...Rc4?! (31...Bf8 was better, and only very slightly in White's favor) Anand had 32.Rxd6!, when Black would have been in some trouble. Instead, 32.c3? left him without an advantage, and the game was drawn shortly after the time control.

Round 6 was another story entirely. Four of the five games were drawn, and the tournament lead changed hands. Ian Nepomniachtchi defeated Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in good style, with the decisive moment coming on move 37. Mamedyarov's 37...Qc5 was as natural as could be (especially if he was in time trouble), overprotecting the knight in anticipation of 38.Qc8 (as played in the game), but it was much better to play 36...Qc3 instead. Black wants to swap off a pair of rooks with 38...Re1+, which also leaves White's king more vulnerable. White would retain excellent chances, but in the game it was just over: 37...Qc5? 38.Qc8 Rxh5 and now White put his second rook to good use with 39.Rxf8+! Qxf8 40.Rd8, winning Black's queen. Black couldn't achieve a fortress afterward, and Nepo got the full point.

The full point, and the lead, because Anish Giri lost to Levon Aronian on the black side of an English. The final position may not seem so bad at first, especially if one thinks that Black is giving up on account of a line like 34...Re8 35.b8Q Rxb8 36.Nxb8. If that represented best play for both sides, Giri certainly would have continued. The problem is that 34...Re8 loses immediately to 35.Ne7+! followed by 36.Nc8, cutting off the rook, while if 34...Rd1+ followed by 35...Rb1 White can again cut off the rook, this time by 36.Nb4. Black can eliminate the b-pawn with 34...Rb8! 35.Nxb8 Nc5, but since he'll be two pawns down after 36.Nc6 Nxb7 37.Nxa7 Giri's resignation was appropriate after all.

Two other games were decisive. Peter Svidler obtained a serious opening advantage on the white side of a Reti against Li Chao and steadily increased it from start to finish. That brought Svidler back to an equal score, while Vladimir Kramnik went to +1 by giving poor Boris Gelfand his fifth defeat in a row. ("Olympic rings", as the joke goes.) Kramnik has been very successful in this event with 1.e4, and this game was no exception. Despite Gelfand's enormous experience in the Najdorf, Kramnik won the theoretical battle and obtained a clear advantage after the opening. Gelfand's 21...Rc6? was the losing move, and while Kramnik could have more easily with different 27th and 28th moves (27.Bxa6 Qxa6 28.Nb4 followed by 29.Qxb6, 30.Nd5+ and 31.Nxb6 was the first improvement, and 28.Bxa6 Qxe4 29.Nd5+! was the second) his approach was good enough. Opposite-colored bishops are sometimes overrated as a drawing weapon, and in this game Gelfand never had a chance to save the ending.

The fifth and last game, between Evgeny Tomashevsky and Viswanathan Anand, finished in a draw.

Two rounds remain; here are the pairings for round 8:

• Kramnik (4) - Tomashevsky (2.5)
• Svidler (3.5) - Gelfand (1)
• Nepomniachtchi (5) - Anand (4)
• Aronian (4) - Li Chao (3.5)
• Giri (4.5) - Mamedyarov (3)

Tal Memorial, Round 5: Anand the Day's Only Winner; Giri Continues to Lead

Anish Giri entered the round in first with 3.5 points, half a point ahead of Ian Nepomniachtchi. They played in round 5, with Giri getting the white pieces. Nepomniachtchi sacrificed a pawn early on for activity, and while Giri managed to keep the pawn and neutralize his opponent's counterplay, the cost of doing so was a drawn rook ending. At least it was drawn with correct play, and "Nepo" achieved that standard.

In fact all but one of the day's games were drawn. Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik had a somewhat similar game, except that Kramnik had to suffer more before reaching the rook ending and required a higher degree of accuracy to hold it. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had White against Peter Svidler, but was a bit worse in the early middlegame. By reaching an opposite-colored bishop ending, he was able to avoid any serious trouble - though he too had to save the game a pawn in arrears. Finally, Li Chao and Evgeny Tomashevsky drew as well, and without either player suffering a material deficit.

The one winner was Viswanathan Anand, who bounced back from yesterday's loss to Kramnik to beat poor Boris Gelfand, who has lost four games in a row. Opposite-colored bishop endings are more drawish than most other endings, but that's primarily when there are only the bishops. In this game both players had both rooks as well, and Anand showed that the ending wasn't drawish at all. To avoid the sure loss that would result from passive defense Gelfand came up with the dynamic double pawn sac 33...Rd8 followed by 36...e3, but Anand's counter-sac with 37.Bxe3 resulted in a prospectless ending for Gelfand. Anand had a rook and four pawns (three connected queenside passers, plus an f-pawn) against Gelfand's rook and bishop. With best play, maybe Gelfand could have held it (emphasis on "maybe"), but with his king cut off on the kingside his chances of saving the game were slim indeed. If there was a way to do it, he didn't find it, and Anand won comfortably.

Here are the pairings for round 6 on Sunday (Monday is the next rest day):

• Kramnik (2.5) - Gelfand (.5)
• Tomashevsky (1.5) - Anand (3)
• Svidler (2) - Li Chao (3)
• Nepomniachtchi (3.5) - Mamedyarov (2.5)
• Aronian (2.5) - Giri (4)

Tal Memorial, Round 4: Giri Leads

The fourth round of the Tal Memorial was very exciting, with three decisive games out of five - and it could have been five out of five. Anish Giri defeated Peter Svidler with Black to take sole possession of first with 3.5/4. He is half a point ahead of Ian Nepomniachtchi, who drew with Levon Aronian. For the most part this was a correct result, except for an Aronian blunder on move 15 that went unpunished.

The other draw was a marathon battle between Evgeny Tomashevsky and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Early on Mamedyarov had an edge, but later Tomashevsky wasn't just better; he was winning. He missed his chances, and in the end Mamedyarov scraped out a draw.

Boris Gelfand did his best to try to eke out a draw against Li Chao, hoping to create a fortress against Li's superior forces, but he couldn't do it. Finally, Vladimir Kramnik bounced back from his loss in round 3 with a good win over his longtime rival Viswanathan Anand. He was pressing throughout the first time control, but without ever being too close to a win. In the second time control, however, his pressure bore fruit. Kramnik did make one subsequent mistake, but Anand failed to seize his chance and lost several moves later.

The games, with comments, are here, and here are the round 5 pairings:

• Aronian (2) - Kramnik (2)
• Giri (3.5) - Nepomniachtchi (3)
• Mamedyarov (2) - Svidler (1.5)
• Li Chao (2.5) - Tomashevsky (1)
• Anand (2) - Gelfand (.5)

Tal Memorial, Round 2: Anand, Giri Win

There's now a three-way tie for first after two rounds of the Tal Memorial. Three games were drawn - two post-haste (Svidler-Nepomniachtchi and Tomashevsky-Aronian) while the third (Kramnik-Li Chao) always seemed headed for the draw that was eventually achieved.

The other two games were impressive achievements by the victors. Anish Giri defeated Boris Gelfand with the black pieces in good style. Giri's active play in the center involved a pawn sac, and it would seem that he did a better job of evaluating the sharp position that resulted than did his opponent. 28...g5 was a nice move, and Giri finished the game with an impressive attack, helped along by Gelfand's plausible error on move 34 in time trouble.

Viswanathan Anand also won with an impressive attack, but in an endgame. Mamedyarov went for an interesting piece sac in a Closed Ruy, and while his compensation may have been enough it required accurate play to remain that way. His decision to trade queens on move 29 surprised Anand, and the computer doesn't like it either: Black's compensation rested as much on his attacking chances as on the pawns he had for the piece, and once the queens came off it was White who took over the initiative. The final sequence, beginning with, say, 47.Rb6, was very nice. Mamedyarov wasn't too far away from escaping with a draw, but some clever tactics combining various possible knight forks with threats against Black's king secured the win for the former world champion.

Here are the pairings for round 3, with player scores in parentheses:

• Nepomniachtchi (1.5) - Kramnik (1)
• Aronian (1) - Svidler (1)
• Giri (1.5) - Tomashevsky (.5)
• Mamedyarov (.5) - Gelfand (.5)
• Li Chao (1) - Anand (1.5)

Tal Memorial, Round 1: Nepomniachtchi Beats Tomashevsky; Other Games Drawn

First a quick word about the Tal Memorial blitz, which occurred on Sunday. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was the runaway winner, scoring an undefeated 7.5/9. Levon Aronian finished in second with 5.5 points, and Ian Nepomniachtchi, Peter Svidler, and Anish Giri (in that tiebreak order) tied for third-fifth with 5 points apiece. All five players thereby secured an extra white game in the main tournament. (More on the blitz here.)

Today was time for round 1 of the main event. Only one game had a winner, and one other game should have. The win belonged to Ian Nepomniachtchi, who defeated Evgeny Tomashevsky in a strange game. Nepomniachtchi played the Scotch, which is about as surprising as Peter Svidler dominated a post-game press conference. Nevertheless, Tomashevsky seemed badly unprepared, choosing a seemingly dubious line on move 10. The poor continuations on moves 12 and 13 suggested that his choice on move 10 wasn't part of some deep new idea, and by move 14 he was already lost. Resignation was already reasonable on move 20, and occurred on move 23.

Svidler also seemed headed for a win over Vladimir Kramnik after 17...g5?! 18.Be3 d5?! got Kramnik into trouble and subsequent errors on moves 25 and 30 left him lost. The win wasn't quite trivial though, and in what was probably time trouble Svidler lost much of his advantage. The momentum continued to swing Kramnik's way, and by around move 45 he was the one doing the pressing. It wasn't enough, and the game ended in a draw, as did Aronian-Gelfand, Giri-Anand, and Mamedyarov-Li Chao.

The games, with varying degrees of annotation, are here, and these are the pairings for round 2:

• Kramnik - Li Chao
• Anand - Mamedyarov
• Gelfand - Giri
• Tomashevsky - Aronian
• Svidler - Nepomniachtchi

The Tal Memorial Starts Today

At least, as mentioned in the last post, the blitz portion does. It won't count for the standings, but players will receive their pairing numbers for the "real" tournament based on their blitz performance. That starts at either 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. local time in Moscow (=10 a.m. or noon ET) - I've seen both numbers. Here's who's playing, listed in order of blitz ratings:

Ian Nepomniachtchi (2840)
Levon Aronian (2826)
Peter Svidler (2795)
Evgeny Tomashevsky (2793)
Viswanathan Anand (2790)
Anish Giri (2766)
Boris Gelfand (2765)
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2748)
Vladimir Kramnik (2713)
Li Chao (2624)

Predictions for the blitz, and for the main event? I'll go with Nepomniachtchi and Aronian, respectively. These predictions should be taken as seriously as if they were arrived at by pulling their names out of a hat.

Tournament site here, Chess24 preview here.

This Week's World Chess Column: In Memory Of...

With the Tal Memorial starting today (the blitz portion used to set the pairings, that is; the tournament proper starts Monday) I take note of the panoply of memorial events offered to world champions and "ordinary" grandmasters alike. It's interesting to see not only who has been thus commemorated, but to also pay attention to the dog that didn't bark and recognize that some greats haven't received serious memorialization. (Perhaps that's a column for another week.)