Nakamura Grabs the Lead in Tashkent as Vachier-Lagrave Loses First

A new leader has emerged at the Grand Prix in Tashkent: Hikaru Nakamura. The U.S. grandmaster is the only player on 3.5/5 after beating Boris Gelfand since Maxime Vachier-Lagrave lost to Dmitry Jakovenko.

Baadur Jobava won his second game in the tournament; he beat Sergey Karjakin with a bishop sacrifice on h3.

The fifth round in Tashkent followed after the first rest day, and so the players had  even more time to prepare for their games. And some of the games were indeed highly theoretical, with novelties only after move 20, although one player started thinking as early as move three.

First, let's see what happens when someone is not that well prepared. In the Giri-Shirov Univé match we recently saw what a difference of preparation can lead to, but Giri was also higher rated and much younger. The rating and age difference between Jakovenko and Vachier-Lagrave is smaller, but here too preparation was everything.

Jakovenko was surprised that his opponent repeated a line in the Anti-Grünfeld that he had played before against the Polish grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski: “It's a more or less forced line where Black just fights for a draw without almost any chance for a win and without a guarantee for a draw.”

MVL said that he chose to play this and not something else because he was “most familiar” with it, but “I forgot to check. I knew that if you don't remember the line it's a tough day.” And it sure was — the Frenchman lost the game, and with it the top position in the leaderboard.

Especially in the Berlin Ending the level of preparation is gigantic these days. Radjabov and Andreikin played what is one of the main lines these days (first h2-h3 before Nb1-c3, and Black going Kd8-e8, ...h7-h5 and Rh8-h6) and basically on every move the database spits out a top level game. Andreikin said he had already prepared everything for his game against Caruana.

A check on move 22 was when the players left theory: Anand-Karjakin, Candidates’ (Khanty-Mansiysk) 2014. A few moves later the last minor pieces were traded and so this meant that the players' preparation had basically consisted of studying a rook ending! That's adjourned games all over again!

At the press conference a young kid asked the grandmasters how much time they study chess per day. While Andreikin stressed the importance of having fun with chess (and football) at his age, Radjabov answered: “These days it's very important to work hard to get good positions. I study about 6-8 hours a day but there are days when you don't study at all.”

What a contrast with the game between Karjakin and Jobava! After 1.e4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Nc3 the Georgian number one, who had expected 3.e5, thought for 34 minutes before going 3...dxe4, 4...Nf6 and taking on f6 with the e-pawn. He had spent his time comparing the line with Tartakower's 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6 exf6 and found a subtle difference (explained in the annotations to the game below).

Jobava pondering his third (!) move. | Photo © Yulia Monakova courtesy of FIDE.

At some point White played h2-h3, Black went Bc8-e6 and then Karjakin said he “blundered” ...Qd7 when a sacrifice on h3 was almost unavoidable. Online commentator Alexei Barsov called the sac “exciting and brave play” by Jobava, but was it really? “When I sacrificed I thought it must be enough for a draw so I don't risk anything so practically I will win or draw. Why not to sacrifice,” said Jobava.

In practice it turned out to be difficult to defend, but Karjakin did OK for a while, until he blundered. The Russian GM blamed it on playing too fast. “Very stupid.”

Karjakin, who arrived at the playing hall just thirty seconds before the start of the round, said he “forgot about the time”, adding “but maybe it was a good decision not to come [at all]!”

Caruana and Mamedyarov also played a rather theoretical line in the Slav. Yet again the Italian's preparation wasn't as successful as e.g. at the Sinqufield Cup. He said he felt that 11.Ra4 is the principled move, but in the game he played 11.Ke2. Mamedyarov played a novelty, Caruana didn't find the most dangerous moves and soon it was equal.

Asked about his bad start, Caruana said: “It's sometimes hard to say why a player doesn't play well. (..) This just weren't going very well for me, at least... I should have won the second game; the position I got after more or less ten moves was overwhelming, so it's pretty disappointing. In general I think there's always chances up until the end of the tournament. A lot of players have shown that even if you start badly there's always chances to come back so I still keep some hope for a decent result.”

Kasimdzhanov and Giri drew a game that started as a 4.e3 Grünfeld. “I didn't expect my opponent to play the Grünfeld and therefore I played not a very principled variation,” said the Uzbek GM, who nonetheless got a promosing position as White. Kasimdzhanov: “Black got a really sad endgame but as usual I didn't show enough technique to win it.”

The last game to finish produced the new tournament leader as Hikaru Nakamura defeated Boris Gelfand in an ending that was drawn for most of the time. Avoiding the Najdorf, Nakamura played 3.Bb5+ and then the sideline 6.e5, but Gelfand's response was solid.

At the press conference the players suggested several improvements for Black, and Nakamura said that only around the time control he actually got an advantage in the ending. Even after White broke through on the kingside the position was still a draw, but with only two minutes on the clock Gelfand failed to find the correct defense.

On Monday Nakamura will defend his pole position against the top seed, world #2 Caruana, who is however on the 10th spot in the standings.

2014 Grand Prix, Tashkent | Round 5 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	Pts	SB
1	Nakamura,H	2764	2890		½	1					½	½			1	3.5/5
2	Andreikin,D	2722	2831	½				½				1	½	½		3.0/5	7.25
3	Jobava,B	2717	2831	0				½	1				½	1		3.0/5	6.25
4	Vachier-Lagrave,M	2757	2828					½	½	0			1	1		3.0/5	6.00
5	Radjabov,T	2726	2742		½	½	½		½	½						2.5/5	7.00
6	Karjakin,S	2767	2739			0	½	½		1					½	2.5/5	6.00
7	Jakovenko,D	2747	2741				1	½	0					½	½	2.5/5	5.75
8	Giri,A	2768	2766	½								½	½	½	½	2.5/5	5.50
9	Mamedyarov,S	2764	2769	½	0						½		½		1	2.5/5	5.50
10	Caruana,F	2844	2676		½	½	0				½	½				2.0/5
11	Kasimdzhanov,R	2706	2596		½	0	0			½	½					1.5/5	4.00
12	Gelfand,B	2748	2615	0					½	½	½	0				1.5/5	3.75

xxx

2014 Grand Prix, Baku | All Results

The total prize fund is €120,000. The games start each day at 14:00 local time which is 11:00 in Amsterdam, 10:00 in London, 05:00 in New York, 02:00 in Los Angeles and 19:00 in Sydney. The last round starts three hours earlier. 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