Caruana, Gelfand Bounce Back in Baku

With one round to go, the situation at the Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan is back to what it was before: Fabiano Caruana and Boris Gelfand are tied for first place after beating Leinier Dominguez and Teimour Radjabov respectively.

On another day where four games ended decisively, Rustam Kasimdzhanov lost to Alexander Grischuk and Evgeny Tomashevsky beat his compatriot Dmitry Andreikin.

Dealing well with losses is an important quality of a top chess player, said Fabiano Caruana a few days ago. After a long undefeated streak, the Italian GM lost two games in Baku, and his play has been shaky there, but nonetheless a win against Dominguez brought him back to first place today.

“Considering my tournament situation I liked to experiment a bit but actually it didn't work very well. By move 15 I was already seriously worse,” said Dominguez.

When it rains it pours, and the Cuban couldn't really put up a serious fight today.

Yesterday Gelfand lost almost without a fight to Mamedyarov, but today it was the Israeli who was in the driver's seat. This was mostly because of a serious inaccuracy in the opening from Radjabov, who “blundered the transposition in the opening,” as he said himself.

In this Catalan, Black can put his queen on d6 after White has played Nc3, but not against Rd1. Black was surprisingly helpess in the remainder.

Four players are trailing Caruana and Gelfand by half a point, and one of them is Tomashevsky. The Russian drew his first nine games, and then beat his compatriot Andreikin:

In yet another decisive game, Grischuk played “extravagantly” with a very early ...Nh6. At the press conference he joked: “When we discussed this last night we wondered what face Boris would make. He considers such moves a personal insult.”

The move prepared a Stonewall structure, although the middlegame looked more like an Exchange QGD. Whatever it was, Kasimdzhanov didn't know how to play it.

He said: “Yesterday I lost by one mistake but today everything I did was wrong. Alexander played quite a good game. Probably I need to learn a bit more about these structures — and I will.”

Grischuk stated, somewhat mysteriously: “I play much better now and there is one quite clear reason for this” — and then he didn't want to reveal that reason until after the tournament!

Karjakin-Svidler was a quick but spectacular draw where Black must have been winning somewhere. In a Closed Ruy Lopez, just a few moves after leaving theory Karjakin was already in trouble. On move 17, Svidler could choose how to rip open White's king position, and both were promising. Due to a miscalculation he suddenly had to go for a repetition of moves.

“I don't think I get a mating attack against Sergey in the next couple of years so I'm a bit said that I let it go,” said Svidler.

Nakamura wasn't in his best form, and so he was happy to draw with Mamedyarov: 

“I think I was quite lucky that played something where the position became simple because I couldn't seem to see anything today," Nakamura said. "If I would have played something else I would have probably lost; I was just blind at the board.”

2014 Grand Prix, Baku | Round 10 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	Pts	SB
1	Caruana,F	2844	2819		½	1	½		1	0	½	1	½	0	1	6.0/10	29.00
2	Gelfand,B	2748	2824	½		½	½	½		1	1	0	½	1	½	6.0/10	29.00
3	Karjakin,S	2767	2788	0	½		1	½	½	½	½	½	½		1	5.5/10	26.50
4	Nakamura,H	2764	2788	½	½	0		½	½	½		½	1	1	½	5.5/10	26.25
5	Tomashevsky,E	2701	2782		½	½	½		½	½	½	½	½	1	½	5.5/10	26.25
6	Svidler,P	2732	2789	0		½	½	½		½	½	1	½	½	1	5.5/10	25.00
7	Grischuk,A	2797	2748	1	0	½	½	½	½		0	½	1	½		5.0/10	25.75
8	Radjabov,T	2726	2753	½	0	½		½	½	1		½	½	½	½	5.0/10	24.25
9	Mamedyarov,S	2764	2721	0	1	½	½	½	0	½	½			½	½	4.5/10	22.75
10	Kasimdzhanov,R	2706	2720	½	½	½	0	½	½	0	½			1	½	4.5/10	22.25
11	Andreikin,D	2722	2683	1	0		0	0	½	½	½	½	0		1	4.0/10
12	Dominguez,L	2751	2601	0	½	0	½	½	0		½	½	½	0		3.0/10

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