Radjabov loses to Inarkiev, Grischuk takes his place

In round 7 of the Grand Prix in Elista, Inarkiev escaped from a totally lost position and even beat one of the tournament leaders, Radjabov. Eljanov won against Cheparinov and Grischuk beat Alekseev, to share the lead with Gashimov.

The 3rd Grand Prix takes place December 13-29 in Elista, Kalmykia. Radjabov, Leko, Jakovenko, Wang Yue, Mamedyarov, Eljanov, Grischuk, Alekseev, Bacrot, Gashimov, Cheparinov, Akopian, Kasimdzhanov and Inarkiev play daily at 15:00 local time (13:00 CET; 07:00 EST); 2nd rest day Dec. 24; live games here.

Results Round 7, December 21 Leko-Kasimzhanov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Jakovenko-Mamedyarov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Inarkiev-Radjabov 1-0 Gashimov-Bacrot ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Eljanov-Cheparinov 1-0 Alekseev-Grischuk 0-1 Wang Yue-Akopian ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?

Round 7

The surprise of the day was of course Inarkiev beating Radjabov (interviewed after round 6, published at the tournament website), and even more when you follow the course of events in the game, because the Azeri grandmaster missed several wins. In another 9.0-0-0 Dragon, the game was about even all the time until Inarkiev's inaccuracy 30.Qg4?! (Nimzowitsch would have chosen 30.Ne3 in the blink of an eye) which allowed Black's passed pawn to run to e2. Radjabov first missed the tactical shot 33...Bxc3! with the idea 34.bxc3 Qe4+ 35.Ka1 Rb8 and curtains, and later 36...Qd3! would have been winning as well. Still difficult for White would have been 38...Be5 but when the smoke of the time trouble had cleared, Radjabov found himself in a terrible ending.



Good news for Volga/Benk?ɬ? Gambit lovers: it was played at the highest level today, and successfully! Grischuk used it to beat Alekseev with Black and it was a very nice game indeed. As usual, as soon as Black had won back his pawn on the queenside, he had a positionally winning position which he proved in the final rook ending. Grischuk climbed to shared first place with Gashimov, who drew with White against Bacrot in a quiet, Accelarated Dragon (great to see the variety of openings in Elista!).



In was interesting to see how Wang Yue played against Akopian's Meran set-up: the Chinese postponed developing his queen's knight until move 14! He seemed to get a slight, positional edge but Akopian calculated deeply and held the balance.

Leko continues to underperform. He didn't really get much out of his 7.Nf3 Najdorf besides ending up with a knight against a bad bishop, but with pawns on just one wing that's at least one weakness too little in the opponent's camp. Jakovenko-Mamedyarov quickly reached an ending that was quite entertaining; Black won a few pawns, White an exchange, but it was always about equal.

The longest game of the round (actually of the tournament) was Eljanov-Cheparinov, in which the Ukrainian needed 93 moves to win an ending with Queen, Bishop and three pawns versus Queen and four (which was reached at move 32). The reason for Cheparinov's problems was 18...Nf6? which meant that he had completely missed one of the ideas behind the cunning 18.Qc1: if he takes back with the e-pawn or the knight on d5, White can take on c6!



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Pairings round 8, December 22

Kasimzhanov-Akopian Grischuk-Wang Yue Cheparinov-Alexeev Bacrot-Eljanov Radjabov-Gashimov Mamedyarov-Inarkiev Leko-Jakovenko

Links:

• Tournament website
• Live games
• TWIC's games in PGN