Grischuk, Mamedyarov, MVL Share 1st At Sharjah Grand Prix

In the final round of the Sharjah Grand Prix, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov defeated Hou Yifan (on her birthday!) and caught Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alexander Grischuk. The latter won the first prize on tiebreak.

More fast draws were likely to appear in the final round, but eventually only two games went that way. The all-Russian encounter between Dmitry Jakovenko and Ian Nepomniachtchi on board three was the first to end in a draw.

Soon tournament leaders Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alexander Grischuk followed suit. With this, they secured shared first place.

MVL: "I started well, but then somehow things didn't fall into place. I didn't manage to create problems to all my opponents. I would have been happier if I could have produced a little more content in my games."

Grischuk: "It's hard to be upset because I sort of produced the maximum result in the last two rounds."

With a boring draw, MVL and Grischuk secured first place.

Paco Vallejo and Evgeny Tomashevsky drew a Nimzo-Indian in 22 moves, and then provided some interesting comments about playing such tournaments.

Vallejo, who ended up as the only player to play nine draws: "It's the first time in my life. In general I have an aggressive style, I think, but here everything went in the other direction somehow."

Vallejo trying to remember his Nimzo preparation.

Tomashevsky: "I played very poor chess. In the competitions of the world championship cycle, preparation plays a big role: opening-wise, psychologically, mentally. All players are trying to play more solid chess and more accurate lines comparing to the usual tournaments. If you are not well prepared in the openings or mentally or energetically, you will have problems."

But then the round saw a big development as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov defeated Hou Yifan. That wasn't the best present for the reigning women's world champion (for just a few more days!), who turned 23 today.

"I think my best game was today. It's her birthday, but what to do!" said Mamedyarov.

In doing so, Mamedyarov caught the leaders in first place. A very aggressive attitude in a Nimzo-Indian was very successful for the Azerbaijani:

A happy Mamedyarov after playing his best game of the tournament.

At the press conference, Mamedyarov repeated that he shouldn't have played for a win in the endgame against Grischuk. And it was funny to hear that despite his 2772 live rating, he still sees room for improvement.

"After the game I was checking my computer. I think after this tournament I think I need to [read] books. Dvoretsky's books, how to play these positions, who is better."

Except perhaps for the last round, Hou Yifan played an excellent tournament (with eight draws). Mamedyarov only had one mishap in the penultimate round, but can be satisfied with that shared first place obviously.

Despite a loss on her birthday, Hou Yifan was smiling too today.

Richard Rapport vs Li Chao started promising, with White pushing both his a- and h-pawns up the board in the opening. That happened to be all over-the-board inspiration.

Rapport: "Brilliant preparation by me. After 2...d5 I was on my own. Kind of ridiculous."

Unfortunately the game ended rather abruptly, like we've seen in other games in this tournament.

Rapport: "In the final position I felt by principle I must be worse somehow. And if I am worse, it's not a bit, it's really worse. If we exchange queens, it's game over, basically."

"We're humans, not robots." Well, except for Rapport's tie today.

Pavel Eljanov played 1.e4, the recent addition to his repertoire, and nicely defeated Salem Saleh. After round seven the Ukrainian lamented that he was lacking form, but against two lower-rated players he was a strong force nonetheless.

Levon Aronian wasn't playing a great tournament, and his final-round loss made it even worse. He went down against Ding Liren in a Catalan, where just before the time control the tactics favored White. "I became careless. I thought that I equalized finally," Aronian said.

The difference between a draw and a loss was quite substantial for the Grand Prix points. Maybe Aronian had this in mind when he said: "The positive thing is that the tournament is finished. The other games I played badly but I'm very ashamed of my play today."