Moscow Grand Prix 2017

FIDE Moscow Grand Prix 2017 Moscow, Russia May 12-21, 2017

1. Ding Liren CHN 2773, 6.0/9 2. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov AZE 2772, 5.5/9

3- 9. Teimour Radjabov AZE 2710, Alexander Grischuk RUS 2750, Peter Svidler RUS 2755, Maxime VachierLagrave FRA 2795, Hikaru Nakamura USA 2786, Anish Giri NED 2785, Hou Yifan CHN 2652, 5.0/9

10-12. Boris Gelfand ISR 2724, Evgeny Tomashevsky RUS 2696, Penteala Harikrishna IND 2750, 4.5/9

13-14. Francisco Vallejo Pons ESP 2710, Jon Ludvig Hammer NOR 2621, 4.0/9

15-17. Salem AR Saleh UAE 2633, Michael Aams ENG 2747, Ian Nepomniachtchi RUS 2751, 3.5/9

18. Ernesto Inarkiev RUS 2727, 2.5/9

Time Control: 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves followed by 15 minutes play-to-finish with 30 seconds added after every move starting move 1.

GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan led for most of the tournament but was overtaken by Ding Liren in the last round. It served him right too, for Ding Liren fought for the victory in the last game while Shakh agreed to a quick draw with Vachier-Lagrave.

Previous to this Shakh’s form had been very impressive. Starting from April 21 the Azeri won 29.1 Elo points: nine at the Gashimov Memorial, 13.9 at the Russian Team Championship (where he scored 4/4) and 6.2 from the first four rounds ( 2 wins 2 draws) of the Moscow Grand Prix. Look at how powerful his play was against England’s Michael Adams.

*** Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar (2772) — Adams, Michael (2747) [E52] Moscow Grand Prix 2017 Moscow

(3.5), 14.05.2017 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 b6 5. e3 Bb7 6. Bd3 0– 0 7.0– 0 d5 8. cxd5 exd5 9. a3 Bd6 10. b4 Nbd7 11.Qb3 a6 12.a4

One of the recurring themes of this variation is that Black’s bishop on d6 is quite superior to its counterpart on c1, so Bc1–a3 to exchange bishops is a desirable maneuver for White.

In connection with the previous note, if Black plays aimlessly, for example 12... Re8?! White realizes the objective of exchanging bishops with 13.Ba3! c6 14.b5! and now Black has to agree to taking the bishops off the board because the move 14... c5 simply loses a pawn to 15.bxa6 Bxa6 (15...c4 allows 16.axb7 cxb3 17.bxa8Q Qxa8 18.Bxd6 White has too much for the queen) 16.Bxa6 Rxa6 17.Nxd5 and White has a big advantage.

Now 14.b5 does not work — Black will reply 14...axb5 and ...c6–c5.

GM Dejan Bojkov in Chess.com remarked here that “This is the other way to play the position. Anatoly Karpov successfully used this idea to defeat Boris Spassky during their match in 1974. The queenside is blocked thus White can open the center with e3–e4.”

This comment really perked my attention, for Karpov vs Spassky 1974 match is historically significant. If you will recall Spassky had just lost the world championship title to Bobby Fischer and was trying to get a rematch with the American GM. He overpowered GM Robert Byrne in the first Candidates’ match 4.5–1.5 but was surprisingly crushed by the 23-year-old Karpov 4.0–7.0 who then went on to defeat Viktor Korchnoi 12.5–11.5 in a draining Candidates’ Finals. Subsequently, Karpov became world champion without making a move when Bobby Fischer refused to defend his title.

I went over the game scores of all the games and this position never came up. However, then I noticed the 11th (and final) game which arose from the Queen’s Gambit Declined Makogonov-Bondarevsky line. It was a different position from a different opening but the motif was the same — Karpov used a4-a5 to fix the queenside position and then pushed e3-e4 after which Black’s position collapsed quickly.

The point of this little side-note is, especially if you are the d4 player, remember the maneuver Mamedyarov used in this game!

Consistent with his plan of taking over the b-file.

The pawn capture 18...Bxb4 does not help at all after 19.Nxf6+ gxf6 20.Bxh7+

Mamedyarov has already seen the combination which he uses later in the game, and for that to work the king should be on f8.

[22...Bxe5 23.Rxe5 ( White’s deadly threat is Qc5+ followed by mate) 23... Be6 (23...Qd6 24.Bf4 Be6 25.Rbe1 Nd7 26. Rf5! Qe7 27. Rxf7+ Qxf7 28. Bd6+ White wins) 24.Bf4 Qd7 25.Qc5+ Qe7 26. Rxe6! Qxc5 27. bxc5 fxe6 28. Bd6+ Ke8 29.Rxb6 White is clearly winning]

POSITION AFTER 22...ND5

23.Nxf7! Qxf7 Adams would be mated if he had taken with the King: 23...Kxf7 24.Qg6+ Kf8 25.Re8#

The queen cannot move because of the possibility of Re8.

[ 26... Re8 27. Be6 Qf6 28. Rb3! followed by Rf3 is fatal]

After another win in the 4th round against UAE’s GM Salem AR Saleh, Mamedyarov then proceeded to draw all of his remaining games, many of them fightless. What happened to him? What cooled him off ? We may get a clue by going over the newly released FIDE June 2017 rating list and please take note of the person sitting at no. 5: 1. Magnus Carlsen NOR 2832 2. Wesley So USA 2812 3. Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2808 4. Fabiano Caruana USA 2805 5. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov AZE 2800

6. Maxime Vachier- Lagrave FRA 2795 7. Levon Aronian ARM 2793 8. Viswanathan Anand IND 2786 9. Hikaru Nakamura USA 2785 10. Ding Liren CHN 2783 For the first time in his life, Mamedyarov reached the 2800 rating plateau, the 13th player in history to do so. From highest to lowest: 1. Carlsen 2889 2. Kasparov 2857 3. Caruana 2851 4. Aronian 2836 5. Topalov 2827 6. So 2825 7. Anand 2821 8. Vachier-Lagrave 2819 9. Nakamura 2819 10. Kramnik 2818 11. Grischuk 2814 12. Giri 2803.

At this stage of his career Shakh must have remembered the fate of his compatriot Teimour Radjabov, who at one time was the great hope of Azerbaijan to win the world chess championship.

In the 2012 Istanbul Chess Olympiad Radjabov was top board for the Azerbaijan team and played brilliantly — In 8 rounds of play he only sat out 1 game and won 5 and drew 2 in his other 7 games. His live rating had gone up to 2799.6 and it appeared no one can stop from hitting 2800. Someone did by the name of GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek — the Polish GM defeated Radjabov in round 9 in what the Pole described as the best game of his career.

*** Wojtaszek, Radoslaw (2717) — Radjabov, Teimour (2788) [E97] Istanbul ol (Men) (9.1),

06.09.2012 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0–0 6.Be2 e5 7.0–0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 Nh5 10.Re1 f5 11.Ng5 Nf6 12.Bf3 c6 13.dxc6

A novelty at that time — Wojtaszek was Vishy Anand’s long- time second and this move was a fruit of that collaboration.

Intending to activate his a1 rook via the 3rd rank.

17... Ng6 18. Ra3 Kh8 19. Nd5! h6 20.Nh3 Be6 21.Nhf4 Nxf4 22.Nxf4 Bf7 23.Bb2 d5 24.cxd5 Nxd5 25.Qa1 Bxb2 26.Qxb2+ Qf6 27.Qxf6+ Nxf6 28. Rc3 Rac8 29. Rec1 Nd7 30. Bc4! Kh7 31. Be6! Bxe6 32. Nxe6 Rfe8 33.Nxc5± Nb6 34.g3 f4 35.gxf4 Nd5 36.Rc4 e3 37.fxe3 Nxe3 38.Rd4 Re7!

Wojtaszek: “Here I realized that things are not simple at all. White is two pawns up, but I had to face some practical problems.”

Only move: 43...Rh2+ 44.Kg3; 43... Ng4+ 44. Kg2 Rhe3 ( 44... Rxd7 45.Kxh3!) 45.Rxe7+ Rxe7 46.a5 in both cases White is winning.

The only move to win and this had to be calculated carefully as the examination of the variations below will convince you.

The alternative is 48... Rb3 49. b7 h3 50. Ra6+! Kf5 51. Nb6 h2 52. b8Q h1Q 53.Ra5+ Forces mate or wins the queen: 53...Ke4 (53...Ke6 54.Qe8+ Kf6 55. Qf8+ Ke6 56. f5#; 53... Kf6 54. Qf8+ Kg6 55. Rg5+ Kh7 56. Qg7#; 53... Kg6 54.Rg5+) 54.Qb7+ the queen is dead.

Radjabov resigns because 52.Nb6 h2 53.b8Q h1Q 54.Ra5+ Kh4 55.Qh8+ wins the queen.

After this loss Radjabov had the wind knocked out of his sails and drew a rather colorless affair with Ivanchuk in the next round followed by sitting out the last match against India. At the conclusion of the Olympiad his rating was at 2792 and it would appear that he should have no trouble getting back up and hitting 2800, but up to the present date this has not happened.

Maybe that was the fate that Shakhriyar Mamedyarov wanted to avoid. Radjabov is still an active player and is capable of getting a second wind to reach the 2800 plateau. I hope he does for if not he might be remembered only as the one who almost but never quite hit 2800. Having said that, it occurs to me that he might not be remembered at all.