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Home » Chess News » Events » Baku FIDE Grand Prix 2014 » Caruana and Gelfand win on the opening day of the Baku Grand Prix

The four tournament FIDE Grand Prix series for 2014-15 opened with in Baku today. The venue, the Cultural Event Center has a chess history having previously hosted the Soviet Championships of 1961 (won by Spassky) and 1972 (Tal). The other Grand Prix are in Tashkent 20th Oct to 3rd Nov 2014, Tehran 14th to 28th Feb 2015 and Moscow 13th to 27th May 2015. Each player will play three of the four events with all their results counting. The top two will qualify for the Candidates.

The first winner of the event was Boris Gelfand who destroyed Dmitry Andreikin's pet line 5...c5 in the Queen's Indian. Gelfand called it dubious after having studied a game he drew against the late Vugar Gashimov. Gelfand's 7.cxd5 came as a surprise to Andreikin and he quickly developed a huge advantage on the board and the clock. 9...d6 was an attempt to hold on and 11...g6 looked fairly desperate. Gelfand took his time from then on determined not to let his advantage go. 17.Nd5 moved in for the kill, and Gelfand was certain he was winning after 17...Rf8 with 18.e5 de 19.f5 ripping open black's position for a quick kill.

Gelfand,Boris - Andreikin,Dmitry [E15]
Baku FIDE Grand Prix 2014 Baku AZE (1.4), 02.10.2014
[Crowther,Mark]

1.d4 e6 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 c5?!

Andreikin along with Gashimov brought this into practice.

6.d5 exd5 7.cxd5!

FEN:
rn1qkb1r/pb1p1ppp/1p3n2/2pP4/8/5NP1/PP2PPBP/RNBQK2R b KQkq - 0 7

Leads to a big advantage for white according to Gelfand. He studied this after his game against Gashimov.

[7.Nh4 g6 8.Nc3 Bg7 9.Bg5 0-0 10.Qd2 Qe8 11.Bxf6 Bxf6 12.Nxd5 Bxd5 13.Bxd5 Nc6 14.Nf3 Rb8 15.Rc1 Nb4 16.b3 Nxd5 17.Qxd5 Qe6 18.Rd1 b5 19.cxb5 Rxb5 20.0-0 Qxe2 21.Rd2 Qe6 22.Qxd7 Qxd7 23.Rxd7 Ra5 24.Rd2 c4 25.bxc4 ½-½ Gelfand,B (2739)-Gashimov,V (2761) Wijk aan Zee NED 2012]

7...Bxd5 8.Nc3 Bc6 9.e4

[Relevant: 9.0-0 Be7 10.e4 Nxe4 11.Nd5 0-0 12.Re1 f5 13.Bf4 d6 14.Qb3 Kh8 15.Rad1 Bxd5 16.Qxd5 Na6 17.Nd2 Nb4 18.Qe6 Rf6 19.Qb3 Qg8 20.Nxe4 fxe4 21.Rxe4 Re8 22.Rde1 Qf8 23.R4e2 d5 24.Bxd5 Nxd5 25.Qxd5 Rd8 26.Qc4 Rf7 27.Qa4 h6 28.Qxa7 Bg5 29.Qa4 Rd4 30.Qc6 Rf6 31.Qb7 Kh7 32.Be5 Rf7 33.Qxb6 Rd2 34.f4 Rxe2 35.Rxe2 Qa8 36.Qb3 1-0 (36) Tomashevsky,E (2695)-Iturrizaga Bonelli,E (2653) Dubai 2014]

9...d6

Black agrees it's very bad for him.

10.0-0

"I remember 0-0 was good enough." Gelfand.

10...Be7 11.Nh4 g6N

FEN:
rn1qk2r/p3bp1p/1pbp1np1/2p5/4P2N/2N3P1/PP3PBP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 12

"It's a very big choice after it" Gelfand on g6.

[Predecessor (4): 11...0-0 12.Nf5 Re8 13.Bf4 Bf8 14.Re1 Nbd7 15.Nxd6 Bxd6 16.Bxd6 Ne5 17.Bxe5 Rxe5 18.Qxd8+ Rxd8 19.Rad1 Rxd1 20.Rxd1 g5 21.f4 gxf4 22.gxf4 Re8 23.e5 Bxg2 24.Kxg2 Nh5 25.Kf3 Kf8 26.Ne4 Ng7 27.Nf6 Rc8 28.Nxh7+ Ke7 29.Nf6 Nf5 30.Ke4 Ke6 31.h4 c4 32.Nd5 b5 33.h5 Ng3+ 34.Kf3 Nxh5 35.Ne3 Ng7 36.Rd6+ Ke7 37.f5 Ne8 38.Rd4 Rd8 39.Ke4 Rxd4+ 40.Kxd4 a6 1-0 (40) Sargissian,G (2666)-Socko,B (2631) Warsaw 2012]

12.Bh6

[12.Bg5 h6]

12...Bf8 13.Bxf8

[13.Bg5 h6 14.Bxf6 Qxf6 and Gelfand says if he can't find something straight away he may lose his advantage.; 13.Qd2 Bxh6 14.Qxh6 Nbd7]

13...Kxf8 14.Qd2 Ne8

[14...Kg7 15.Rad1 Qe7 16.Qxd6 Qxd6 17.Rxd6 Rc8]

15.Rad1 Kg7 16.f4 Qc8 17.Nd5

FEN:
rnq1n2r/p4pkp/1pbp2p1/2pN4/4PP1N/6P1/PP1Q2BP/3R1RK1 b - - 0 17

Nd5 is winning. All moves are probably good. Gelfand.

17...Rf8

After Rf8 it's definitely lost. Gelfand.

[17...Nd7]

18.e5 dxe5 19.f5 Qd8

[19...f6 20.fxg6 hxg6 21.Nxg6 Bxd5 (21...Kxg6 22.Ne7+ Kg7 23.Nxc8) 22.Ne7 Bxg2 23.Nxc8 Bxf1 24.Kxf1 Nc7 25.Qe2 Ne6 26.Qg4+ Ng5 27.h4 Nc6 28.Rd7+ Kg6 29.h5+ Kh6 30.Qf5 Ne7 31.Rxe7 Rg8 32.g4 Nf7 33.Qxf6+]

20.f6+ Nxf6 21.Nf5+

FEN:
rn1q1r2/p4pkp/1pb2np1/2pNpN2/8/6P1/PP1Q2BP/3R1RK1 b - - 0 21

21... Kh8 22.Qh6 Rg8 23.Nxf6

[23.Nxf6 Qxf6 24.Nd6 and it's all over as f7 drops with check.]

1-0

Fabiano Caruana had a much less comfortable time after being surprised in the Queen's Gambit Bf4 variation with 12.Ne2 by Sergey Karjakin. 13.Qb3 Qb6 14.Qc2 misplaced white's queen and Caruana was unhappy with 15.Rfe8 after which he thought he was definitely worse. Karjakin mentioned a curious tale of how he went to the players' rest area, watch the game on screen and found that the board wasn't up to date and he estimated he lost 15 minutes that turned out to be important later on. Caruana thought he was definitely worse until white had to sacrifice the exchange on move 32. The position was then unclear and with Karjakin now in quite bad time pressure and blundered horribly with 35.a4? (35.Rxd8 was necessary) 35...Rxd5 36.Qxd5 Rc2! Caruana's rise in the ratings continues.

The rest of the games were drawn. Hikaru Nakamura walked right into a line of the Ruy Lopez that Peter Svidler has just produced a video series on and Svidler indeed probably should have been able to press for a win but the game trailed out to a draw.

Leinier Dominguez Perez was struggling out of the opening against a well prepared Rustam Kasimdzhanov but took the position off him at the cost of his clock. Dominguez missed an immediate win 26.Ne7+ and on move 30 the players agreed a draw with Dominguez down to a minute and Kasimdzhanov 2.5 minutes.

I understand this will be the last of the Grand Prix without an increment. I prefer without until move 60 here and think this is the best and most "adult" time control but the players prefer increment every move and FIDE have listened. A question I don't know the answer to is how Aronian plans to qualify for the next Candidates. The previous series you had to play either the Grand Prix series or World Cup or both. Aronian isn't in this series and the World Cup will be in Baku too which whilst it's not impossible for an Armenian to play there it's at the very least problematic. I'm looking for the 2014-16 regulations but haven't found them yet.

Home participants Shahriyar Mamedyarov and Teimour Radjabov are friends and clearly didn't want to damage each other's prospects so early and cleared most of the pieces off the board by move 30 and drew.

Baku FIDE Grand Prix 2014 Baku AZE (AZE), 2-15 x 2014															cat. XXI (2752)
					1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2
1.	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2844	*	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	1	.	1
2.	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2748	.	*	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	1	1
3.	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2797	.	.	*	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	½	2701
4.	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2764	.	.	.	*	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	½	2732
5.	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2764	.	.	.	.	*	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	½	2726
6.	Dominguez Perez, Leinier	g	CUB	2751	.	.	.	.	.	*	.	.	½	.	.	.	½	2706
7.	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2732	.	.	.	½	.	.	*	.	.	.	.	.	½	2764
8.	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2726	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	*	.	.	.	.	½	2764
9.	Kasimdzhanov, Rustam	g	UZB	2706	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	*	.	.	.	½	2751
10.	Tomashevsky, Evgeny	g	RUS	2701	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	*	.	.	½	2797
11.	Karjakin, Sergey	g	RUS	2767	0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	*	.	0
12.	Andreikin, Dmitry	g	RUS	2722	.	0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	*	0

Round 1 (October 2, 2014)
Gelfand, Boris	- Andreikin, Dmitry	1-0	23	E15	Queens Indian
Nakamura, Hikaru	- Svidler, Peter	½-½	32	C84	Ruy Lopez Centre Attack
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	- Radjabov, Teimour	½-½	31	A20	English Opening
Dominguez Perez, Leinier	- Kasimdzhanov, Rustam	½-½	30	A15	English counter King's Fianchetto
Tomashevsky, Evgeny	- Grischuk, Alexander	½-½	32	D97	Gruenfeld Russian
Karjakin, Sergey	- Caruana, Fabiano	0-1	37	D37	QGD 5.Bf4

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