Nakamura, Vachier-Lagrave, Andreikin Win as Tashkent Grand Prix Takes Off

Less than a week after the first Grand Prix in Baku, the second one has started today in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In the first round Fabiano Caruana went down against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Dmitry Andreikin and Hikaru Nakamura were the other winners in the first round; they defeated Baadur Jobava and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov respectively.

The co-winners of the Baku Grand Prix, Fabiano Caruana and Boris Gelfand, both play the second GP tournament as well, which started today in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The other players with this tough schedule are Hikaru Nakamura, Dmitry Andreikin, Sergey Karjakin, Teimour Rajdabov, Rustam Kasimzdhanov and Shakhryiar Mamedyarov. The new names are Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Dmitry Jakovenko and Baadur Jobava.

Giri and Jobava come straight from the Netherlands after playing their Univé matches; the latter only heard about his participation last week, when FIDE announced that the Tehran GP (in February 2015) has been moved to Tbilisi. As a result, the Georgian number one is now playing instead of Iran's GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's last event was the PokerStars Isle of Man tournament, where he tied for sixth place. His start in Tashkent couldn't be better: on his birthday “MVL” won as Black against top seed and world #2 Fabiano Caruana! Let's give the microphone to GM Dejan Bojkov who annotated the game especially for Chess.com — something he will do on a regular basis!

Hikaru Nakamura won convincingly against last-minute entry Baadur Jobava, who is not the lowest seeded player by the way (that's Rustam Kasimdzhanov). The Georgian played the “Accelarated Bogo-Indian” (1.d4 e6 2.c4 Bb4+) which later transposed into a proper Bogo. Black's position became quite passive, and despite Jobava's resourceful play he couldn't save himself as Nakamura played strongly.

The third winner of the day was Dmitry Andreikin, who could easily have lost the game instead. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov won a pawn right after the opening and could play for two results in the ending. However, shortly before the time control he lost track in a double rook ending and went from winning to drawn to losing. Ouch!

Anish Giri and Boris Gelfand were the first to finish in this round. After a very interesting opening phase, the game suddenly reached a middlegame position where neither player could really undertake anything.

Gelfand getting into the mood for a game of chess | Photo Yulia Monakova courtesy of FIDE

Three trainers in the background: Alexander Huzman (Gelfand), Vladimir Tukmakov (Giri) and Vladimir Chuchelov (Caruana) | Photo Yulia Monakova courtesy of FIDE

Teimour Radjabov played an irregular 1.e4 opening (the Vienna with 3.g3) and was quite successful with it against Sergey Karjakin. A knight to h4, a queen to h5 and pawn to f4 to open up some lines, isn't that how we all want to play? Well, if Radjabov hadn't developed his last piece but moved his king instead, it could have finished in a blitzkrieg!

Kasimzdhanov-Jakovenko was a quiet Berlin (not the ending, but 5.Re1) where White's bishop pair was enough for a long-term edge, but not more than that.

2014 Grand Prix, Tashkent | Round 1 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	Pts	SB
1	Nakamura,H	2764	3517												1	1.0/1	0.00
2	Vachier-Lagrave,M	2757	3644										1			1.0/1	0.00
3	Andreikin,D	2722	3564											1		1.0/1	0.00
4	Giri,A	2768	2748						½							0.5/1	0.25
5	Karjakin,S	2767	2726								½					0.5/1	0.25
6	Gelfand,B	2748	2768				½									0.5/1	0.25
7	Jakovenko,D	2747	2706									½				0.5/1	0.25
8	Radjabov,T	2726	2767					½								0.5/1	0.25
9	Kasimdzhanov,R	2706	2747							½						0.5/1	0.25
10	Caruana,F	2844	1957		0											0.0/1	0.00
11	Mamedyarov,S	2764	1922			0										0.0/1	0.00
12	Jobava,B	2717	1964	0												0.0/1	0.00

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