Sinquefield Cup Round 5 Has 2 Wins And A Stalemate
What a difference a day makes at the 2019 Sinquefield Cup! After most players in this elite round-robin started with four consecutive draws, the field decided to make the tournament an "open" with all kinds of fun in round five.
Both Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren got their first wins, while Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin played yet another draw, but unlike any of the ones seen at their 2016 world championship match. Karjakin stalemated himself with 10 pieces left on the board.
And if stalemates don't make you smile, well, you might not share Carlsen's sense of humor. The Grand Chess Tour's Russian-language announcer Evgenij Miroshnichenko can personally testify to this:
Again today, Carlsen showed amusement at his opponent's choice of draws:
After today's stalemate Carlsen wasn't quite as elated since he hasn't made any marks in the win column, but two new players did just that. Ding played a convincing middlegame to overwhelm Anish Giri. This win was the first all week that could be characterized by precise play instead of a howling blunder.
First, the attack come down the d-file, then he offered a pawn and his heavies went perpendicular, shifting the focus sideways to both the sixth and seventh ranks. At one point both rooks and the queen could have occupied "open ranks," and Black couldn't stop the horizontal fusillade.
For the final half of the game, you could sense that Ding was willing to give away his c-pawn at any moment in exchange for activity of his rooks. When it was finally captured on move 38, White's pieces crashed through as intended. Black was already lost anyway, but the acceptance allowed a blistering sideways attack that isn't often seen:
Nepomniachtchi, the other winner, got back to an even score after grinding out an endgame win against Nakamura. Maybe it shouldn't be too surprising that Nepo has factored into two of the tournament's four decisive games. At the Grand Chess Tour's only other classical event, the Russian played more non-draws than anyone else. Six of his 11 games in Zagreb ended in someone's resignation.
It feels good because I think I little bit gave up on this tournament after this start." - Nepomniachtchi
In round five Nepo teetered between the winning and drawing zone for much of the pawn-up ending.
"If it's even a draw objectively... it's a very tough [situation] for Black," the winner said. "This endgame could be study-like."
Let's pick up the action late in the critical stages, where some dancing bishops make the analysis much more complicated than at first sight.
The two have quite a recent history in bishop+pawn versus bishop endings, and they don't seem to be going Nakamura's way. In a rapid game at the Paris GCT event, Nakamura lost another drawn ending against Nepo when the Russian used a "cheapo" in his own words:
"I didn't really care too much about today's game," Nepomniachtchi said afterward while doing an accounting for how many points he could have had entering the day. He said he is "really looking forward" to the rest day on Thursday.
We've been over the wins, but you could almost argue the draws were even more exciting today. First, GM Alex Yermolinsky details the piece sac that Wesley So tried against Fabiano Caruana:
Amazingly, despite the wild opening, Caruana was in prep until move 15.
"I just couldn't remember it; it's such a confusing line, and I hadn't expected it to happen today," Caruana said. "The details, or even the most basic details of the line, I couldn't remember."
"I felt like I was calculating well, but you never really know because these positions are so sharp that you might think all of your calculations were fool-proof, but it's very easy to make a mistake," Caruana said.
Finally, here's a fun way to end the show that was round five. Karjakin didn't have to draw in this manner but played the part of showman by stalemating his own king.
Just like Caruana a day ago, who used "Magnus prep" in a game much later than expected, Karjakin said today's game was also a leftover from his 2016 match prep in New York.
Here's the trio at the top:
Images courtesy Spectrum Studios.
Commentator Maurice Ashley asked several players if they would attend the karaoke party after the round. Nepo said he used to go to karaoke clubs often in Moscow and now that his mood is good that he may go and sing Sinatra.
Then he backtracked, remembering that if So attends, he didn't want a recurrence of the "My Way" killings that apparently caused the death of about a half-dozen people in the Philippines due to bad renditions of the song. Nepo changed course and, remembering what city he was in, said he would sing the blues.
Karjakin said that he usually sings "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga, while Carlsen said he would surely skip the karaoke party. He added that he didn't feel comfortable discussing his varied musical tastes on air.
Carlsen was asked about his career dominance against Nakamura (14-1 in classical), whom he will face after the rest day.
"He seems to be playing pretty solidly now, so it's not like I just count on getting anything else or anything close to that," Carlsen said.
Round five coverage:
Watch Sinquefield Cup Round 5 with GM Hess and IM Rensch #grandchesstour from Chess on www.twitch.tv
You can find all games here as part of our live portal. More photos from the event can be found here. The official site is here.
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Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
