London Chess Grand Prix R4: Grischuk, Gelfand Win

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

It was heavy rain in London, but as Ivanchuk said, it's a great weather to play chess! Very fighting games in Round 4 at the London Chess Grand Prix with no short draws and the players were happy slogging it out after three hours of play. One of the leaders of the tournament, Peter Leko, decided to play a closed Spanish opening against Michael Adams, who is well known to be the specialist of the Marshall gambit. Avoiding the main weapon of the English player, Peter went for a peaceful line, very technical and positional. Adams equalized, took the control of the only open file of the position and was already aiming to be better. Not enough however to break down Peter’s defence and the draw was signed.

The Azeri player chose today a very unusual move order in the Spanish opening. Grischuk, his opponent of the day, decided not to go for the sharp lines and went for a closed Spanish opening. He won in his trademark style. You can see the Grischuk-Mamedyarov game with Chess King.

Vasily was playing against Giri who had a terrible defeat yesterday. The Ukrainian player decided to opt for the Gruenfeld defence. Giri took a small edge due to the passed pawn on “d5”, but was taking too much time for the first moves. After 20 moves, Ivanchuk had already 40 minutes more than his opponent. Black’s position was safe and looked even slightly better. Giri and Ivanchuk decided finally to repeat moves right before the time control.

Leinier Dominguez amazingly spent 10 minutes to play his first move 1…e5. The Cuban player decided to prepare the Berlin defence, like Peter Leko did during the first round against Rustam. Leinier preferred 10…Nf5 instead of 10…Re8. Step by step, Rustam took the control of the “e” file and took more space. Leinier managed to exchange few pieces and arrived in a slightly worse bishop endgame. Not enough and finally the game finished in a draw in 59 moves.

Boris Gelfand played a Catalan opening against Wang Hao. The Israeli player decided to play on the “c” file, exchanging the Queens and getting a better position with the pair of bishops. All the pawns were exchanged on the queenside, but still Boris could put some pressure on black. Boris managed to win a pawn in the endgame, and had to play 5 against 4 on the same side. You can see the Gelfand-Wang Hao game with Chess King.

The last game of the day is between two fighters and tactical players: Nakamura against Topalov. The American player surprised his opponent by playing Alapin Sicilian. But after 2…e6, Hikaru sat back on his chair, looking in the air, and probably thinking on which line to play. The position, which arose after the opening, looked comfortable for white, Topalov decided than to unbalance the position by taking with the “f” pawn on “g6”. The position was balanced even if white’s pawn structure looked better. Draw.
(Round 4 photos by Macauley Peterson)

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