Baku GP: Svidler Beats Dominguez; Caruana, Gelfand Maintain Lead

With three round to go Fabiano Caruana and Boris Gelfand are still topping the standings at the Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan. Peter Svidler defeated Leinier Dominguez for the first time in his life.

Svidler is now trailing the leaders by half a point, together with Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Sergey Karjakin and Teimour Radjabov.

In the eighth round not much changed in the standings; Caruana and Gelfand continue leading the pack. The only decisive game was Dominguez-Svidler, a rather instructive battle with lots of different themes: the thematic Bg4 answering White's d4 push, playing against White's g4 with ....h5 and of course the double rook ending.

Even the players had a hard time evaluating it. Svidler thought that the engine might show it's a draw: “I'm fairly sure there's an exact evaluation of this position but I've no idea what it is. It looked like I wasn't going anywhere and then it was suddenly over in five moves.”

Kasimdzhanov and Caruana played a very interesting Grünfeld, although it must be said that most of it was theory. “Because it's such a sharp line I had to check this very carefully,” said te Uzbek, who had to admit that his long game yesterday did affect his preparation: “Today I did something before the lunch but clearly not enough.”

“I knew about this line. I hadn't checked it for a while but I knew I it should be so bad for Black,” said Caruana, who basically only needed to find seven moves by himself before the draw was agreed upon.

About his loss the other day Caruana said: “When you lose a game you still have to keep on playing. It happens a lot to every player in the world. Losing a game is basically a part of life, at least once in a while, and so if you can't deal with it then you're not going to be successful in the long run. That's one of the important things of being a professional chess player: dealing with losses.”

Caruana also responded to a general question about the Grand Prix, and a comparison was made with the first two series when the players had to play four tournaments out of six, and the three best scores were counted for the overall standings. “I didn't understand the system last time, and I still don't get it. I don't understand why one result isn't counted,” said Caruana. “The only disappointing thing about this Grand Prix is that there's no combined prize fund for the overall best scores. The other money is pretty greatly reduced from last time but otherwise I don't see a difference.”

Gelfand and Nakamura's fight was also pretty interested. In a Leningrad Dutch, Gelfand played a number of fine moves right after the opening. “I thought I had a big positional advantage but then came the very strong move 17...Rb8,” he said. Right after that there was a massive liquidation of pieces and the game quickly petered out to a draw.

These two players also commented on the Grand Prix. “First of all it's much more difficult. It was hard to prepare since dates and locations were announced at the very last minute. Also because only three tournaments and count, so you can't afford a bad result. I prefer to use the rating list,” said Nakamura.

Gelfand didn't agree. “It's good that one can qualify by showing good results in qualification tournaments.” And he pointed out that the next GP starts only five days after the first: “A drawback is to have one after another. It's a bit strange. In two years I think it's possible to find dates when the difference between them are not five days.”

Tomshevsky-Radjabov was quite a good game too. In a 5.Bd2 Grünfeld the Russian GM sacrificed a knight on f7 and got two pawns for it and a huge initiative. Radjabov deserves credit too, for finding a splendid defense. Lots of tactics!

Grischuk and Andreikin played a Berlin Ending and it was White who had the best chances. Just at the time control Grischuk won a pawn, but the presence of opposite-colored bishops made it hard to convert it.

Karjakin-Mamedyarov was a very quiet game. After the opening White got a classical IQP position but the Azeri GM found the nice plan to activate his king (even with queens still on the board) and Karjakin didn't see a way to make progress.

2014 Grand Prix, Baku | Round 8 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	Pts	SB
1	Caruana,F	2844	2830		½	½	1	½	1		½		0		1	5.0/8	21.00
2	Gelfand,B	2748	2845	½		½	½			½	½	½	1	1		5.0/8	18.50
3	Kasimdzhanov,R	2706	2792	½	½		½	½	½	½		½	1			4.5/8	18.25
4	Karjakin,S	2767	2803	0	½	½				½	1	1		½	½	4.5/8	16.75
5	Radjabov,T	2726	2795	½		½			½	½		½	½	1	½	4.5/8	16.50
6	Svidler,P	2732	2802	0		½		½			½	1	½	½	1	4.5/8	15.50
7	Tomashevsky,E	2701	2752		½	½	½	½			½	½		½	½	4.0/8	15.75
8	Nakamura,H	2764	2758	½	½		0		½	½		½	1	½		4.0/8	15.25
9	Dominguez,L	2751	2650		½	½	0	½	0	½	½				½	3.0/8	12.50
10	Andreikin,D	2722	2672	1	0	0		½	½		0			½	½	3.0/8	12.50
11	Grischuk,A	2797	2652		0		½	0	½	½	½		½		½	3.0/8	11.50
12	Mamedyarov,S	2764	2667	0			½	½	0	½		½	½	½		3.0/8	11.00

2014 Grand Prix, Baku | Schedule & Pairings

The total prize fund is €120,000. The games start each day at 15:00 local time which is 12:00 in Amsterdam, 11:00 in London, 06:00 in New York, 03:00 in Los Angeles and 20:00 in Sydney. The last round starts two hours earlier. The tournament website provides live commentary by GMs Emil Sutovsky and GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko which can also be followed on Chess.com/TV! The winner and second placed player in the overall final standings of the Grand Prix will qualify for the Candidates’ Tournament to be held in the last quarter of 2015 or the first half of 2016. | Games via TWIC