Tbilisi GP: Jakovenko Closes In On Tomashevsky

GM Dmitry Jakovenko defeated GM Anish Giri in round seven of the Tbilisi Grand Prix and is now half a point behind GM Evgeny Tomashevsky. 

GM Baadur Jobava won his second game as GM Leinier Dominguez erred in time trouble, while GM Alexander Grischuk blundered and lost to GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

All photos courtesy of FIDE.

The drawing percentage at the Tbilisi Grand Prix is still rather low after seven rounds: 57.2%. Twenty-four games ended peacefully, and both White and Black won nine times.

Today half of the games ended decisively. The first player who got into trouble, GM Alexander Grischuk, eventually held on the longest. He was better in a Cambridge Springs against GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, but missed a nasty double attack.

His position seemed completely hopeless, but somehow Grischuk managed to create a lot of counterplay. It was just not enough.

Seems like a bouncer has been installed at the 2800 club.

— Jonathan Tisdall (@GMjtis) February 22, 2015

GM Baadur Jobava is recovering from a bad start. Wijk aan Zee didn't go well, and 0.5/4 in Tbilisi wasn't much better, but today the local hero won his second game.

Against GM Leinier Dominguez he chose one of his many non-theoretical lines: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Be2, basically a Philidor with an extra tempo. It's a strategy that is often attributed to Magnus Carlsen: just get a position and play.

Needless to say, Black was fine out of the opening. The Cuban was on his way to win a pawn, but in severe time trouble he chose the wong square for his knight. Suddenly he had to give an exchange.

Jobava has now scored 6 out of 7 with 3.Be2. That includes wins vs Svidler, Kamsky, Dominguez & draws vs Caruana & Adams. #chessgrandprix

— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) 22 februari 2015

GM Dmitry Jakovenko's win was important for the standings. The 31-year-old Russian grandmaster defeated GM Anish Giri and is now only half a point behind the leader.

The young Dutchman has followed the recent trend of top GMs adding the Leningrad Dutch to their repertoire. White chose a line where his pawn structure is spoiled, but he gets tremendous activity.

Still, Giri managed to untangle his queenside and limit the damage. The ending was more or less equal, but then he misplayed it and got into trouble. At the end he noticed a drawing line, but went for something else anyway.

Tournament leader GM Evgeny Tomashevsky dropped half a point against GM Peter Svidler in a game with an interesting side story. White played 4.Bg5 against the Grünfeld, and Svidler had to decide whether he would play a new idea which he had shown in his video series for the Chess24 website.

He decided that since it's in the public domain anyway, he might as well play it. To his surprise, his opponent followed his main line and played extremely fast! Svidler concluded that his opponent had indeed seen his videos. He started to worry, and spent a lot of time on the clock.

Eventually the game ended in perpetual check. As it turned out, Tomashevsky had not seen the video! However, he had found the same idea for his opponent, and analyzed it very well...

Tomashevsky: “There are three players who are really hard to beat. Svidler in the Grünfeld, Kramnik in the Berlin and Carlsen anywhere.”

— ChessVibes (@ChessVibes) 22 februari 2015

A Grünfeld was also seen in the game GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov vs GM Teimour Radjabov. On this board 5.Bd2 was played, popular again after an appearance in the second Anand-Carlsen match.

Soon it became clear that Radjabov had studied the line in detail and so Kasimdzhanov decided to play it safe.

GM Dmitry Andreikin vs GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was a 4.Qxd4 Sicilian which quickly led to a Marcozy Bind type of position. MVL's 16...f5 was a novelty and a strong plan, which showed that 10.h3 wasn't good, according to Andreikin.

A bit later this h-pawn could suddenly be taken by the Frenchman, but White had compensation. Andreikin seemed to get a dangerous attack over the black squares, but eventually it was only enough for a draw.

2015 Tbilisi FIDE Grand Prix | Round 7 Standings

The third FIDE Grand Prix runs February 15-27 in Tbilisi, Georgia. It is a round robin, with 11 rounds in total. There are two rest days, on February 19 and 24.