Thessaloniki Grand Prix, Round 9: Dominguez Catches Kamsky
Overall it was one of the least interesting rounds so far in Thessaloniki, and not just because there were only two wins out of six games. Fortunately, it turned out that one of the decisive games was also the most important game for the leaderboard.
The less important win was Veselin Topalov's victory over Alexander Morozevich on the black side of an Advance Caro-Kann. Morozevich had some nice ideas, but something was always a bit off. His pawn sac on move 23 was interesting, but he had a nice tactical opportunity with 23.Nc5, the point being that 23...Bxc5 24.Ra4! leads to a queen trap. Black will obtain sufficient material compensation, but White's position is superior. Later, the "sac" of his knight for three pawns beginning with 35.Nxf7 was an excellent chance, but he made a crucial - fatal - error in the follow-up. The idea of Bxf5 gxf5 d5 was completely correct - if properly timed. White absolutely needed to play 39.Rd3 first, keeping Black's nosy rook out of c3. If Black continued with 39...Be7, aiming to get both the bishop and the rook on h8 into the game, now White could take on f5 and play d5, with pretty fair compensation. As things went Morozevich was lost, and although he was given a bit of a chance with 41...Rxb3 (the unobvious 41...g5! was the winner), he gave the game away for good with 42.Rfe2?, allowing Topalov to force mate starting with 42...Rxg3+.
Now for the main event. Gata Kamsky drew pretty easily with Black against Etienne Bacrot, which meant that if either player won in the clash between Fabiano Caruana and Leinier Dominguez, that person would catch up to Kamsky in first place. Caruana had White, but it was Dominguez who dominated the game. I'm especially impressed by his exchange sacrifice on move 29, for which he received no pawns, no new passed pawns (at least not immediately) and no attacking chances. Queens were off the board and White had the bishop pair, too, so all the usual justifications were absent. Black's position was obviously pleasant - if one ignores the material - but I think most of us would expect White to slowly consolidate and make progress. Maybe Black would hold a draw, but not more than that unless White made some pretty big errors, right?
Wrong. Looking at the game as it happened, it's easy to agree with and internalize the logic of Dominguez's decision. Chances were even after the sacrifice, but Black's position was easier to play: more space, more active pieces, further advanced pawns, etc. As Dominguez pointed out after the game, Caruana probably should have bailed out on move 45 with 45.Rf1+ Ke5 46.Rxf6 Kxf6 47.Rxe4, with a draw. Caruana either missed this (unlikely) or trusted in his winning chances based on queenside counterplay, but that was a deeply mistaken decision. Dominguez may have made a couple of inaccuracies the rest of the way, but that only meant that Caruana might have had an outside shot at a "miracle" draw; the rest of the time Dominguez had a big enough advantage to win two or three games. It was a very impressive game by Dominguez, and he and Kamsky are very deserving leaders at this point.
Here are the pairings for the penultimate round, round 10:
- Grischuk (5) - Dominguez (6.5)
- Topalov (4.5) - Caruana (5.5)
- Kamsky (6.5) - Morozevich (3.5)
- Ponomariov (4.5) - Bacrot (4)
- Ivanchuk (2) - Nakamura (3.5)
- Svidler (4) - Kasimdzhanov (4.5)
And a look ahead: the critical last round pairings are Caruana - Kamsky and Dominguez - Topalov.