Petrosian Memorial: Grischuk Wins Again, Breaks 2800

Alexander Grischuk also won his second game at the Petrosian Memorial, against Boris Gelfand, and now the Russian GM has a live rating of 2803.

Ernesto Inarkiev had a rough start; today he lost to Vladimir Kramnik who played a good game that was decided in an attack on the black king. 

In an exciting second round two, Russia's strongest GMs scored a win. Alexander Grischuk defeated Boris Gelfand as Black and continues to lead the tournament, but Vladimir Kramnik is right behind him thanks to a smooth victory over Ernesto Inarkiev.

Let's start with the latter. One could say that Kramnik played a game he kind of needed; after some bad results he dropped out of the top 10 and then he didn't play for a while, so there was plenty of time to get depressed about chess. Not saying he was, but a nice, positional and attacking victory must have done good for big Vlad!

In a sideline of the Queen's Gambit Declined that was seen in the 1987 Seville match between the two K's, Inarkiev came up with an interesting novelty. Just like in his game with Grischuk, he ended up with isolated pawns on the a- and c-files, but this time the c-pawn wasn't weak.

The problem was that too many of Black's pieces got kind of stuck on the queenside, and as soon as a White rook reached g4, the attack was very dangerous. Although Kramnik won without problems in the game, the computer found a defensive idea for Black which suggests that White's play wasn't 100 percent accurate. But a win is a win!

Kramnik's compatriot and Olympiad team member Grischuk won his second game in a row. In the 4.Bf4 Grünfeld, which Gelfand had also played against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Tashkent, Grischuk went for 6...Be6 where the French GM had avoided the theory in this line.

Although White's play looked very principled, it seems that Grischuk had no serious opening problems because he quickly got a chance to break open the center. Gelfand only got into trouble when he missed a tactic that involved the counterintuitive “finachetto bishop on g7 takes a white knight on e5.”

From that moment, Grischuk was in the driver's seat and he used some more nice tactics to reach a winning endgame. Splendid play!

2803.0! Alexander Grischuk (World #3) is welcome to the 2800 club. Also he renews his highest live rating. #c24live pic.twitter.com/DDmiUcfZ3g

— Live Chess Ratings (@2700chess) November 5, 2014

Alexander Morozevich and Levon Aronian put up a great fight too, but at the end of the day there was no winner. In a Nimzo-Indian White was always a tiny bit better, but Aronian defended well (and even missed a chance to reach a queen ending a pawn up, but that was probably drawn too).

Ding Liren and Peter Leko drew a Queen's Indian that had a some funny moments at the start; at least the Hungarian could laugh about it at the press conference! First, Ding played the maneuver Nd2-b1-c3, which meant he was ready to play a known position a tempo down. Then Leko erred with an early Rc8 which he had to put back to a8 later on, giving back the tempo!

2014 Petrosian Memorial | Round 2 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Pts	SB
1	Grischuk,A	2795	3523							1	1	2.0/2
2	Kramnik,V	2760	2899			½					1	1.5/2
3	Ding Liren	2730	2745		½		½					1.0/2	1.25
4	Leko,P	2731	2727			½		½				1.0/2	1.00
5	Morozevich,A	2724	2764				½		½			1.0/2	1.00
6	Aronian,L	2797	2742					½		½		1.0/2	0.75
7	Gelfand,B	2759	2606	0					½			0.5/2
8	Inarkiev,E	2688	1978	0	0							0.0/2

2014 Petrosian Memorial | Pairings & Results

The Petrosian Memorial is held 3-11 November in Moscow. The prize fund is € 100,000 sponsored by Tashir Group.| Games via TWIC