Chessable Houska's Caro

Baku FIDE Grand Prix 2014 (4)

Caruana joins Gelfand in the lead after Baku Grand Prix Round 4

The stage during round 4. Photo ©

The stage during round 4. Photo © | http://baku2014.fide.com

Fabiano Caruana beat off a rather desperate looking attack from Shakhriyar Mamedyarov to join Boris Gelfand in the lead. Mamedyarov found some interesting attacking ideas but against a calculater as good as Caruana this seemed like a mistake. Caruana revealed he prepares for a couple of hours before lunch for his games. Not in the evening before. Mamedyarov had a rather desperate performance in the Gashimov Memorial earlier in the year and needs to be careful this doesn't happen again here.

Leinier Dominguez Perez played a very sharp idea of queenside castling against Boris Gelfand but it soon became apparant that it was black who had most of the options. Gelfand couldn't find anything clear so agreed a draw.

Dmitry Andreikin drew against Teimour Radjabov after getting the better of a 5.h3 King's Indian but Andreikin couldn't make anything of a slightly better position. "After 15.c5 I didn't like my position all that much. Hard game, tricky games and I can only be satisfied with the result. " - Radjabov

Peter Svidler got into all sorts of trouble against Rustam Kasimdzhanov's Ruy Lopez Exchange variation. Kasimdzhanov expected a Sicilian so went back to something solid. 5...Qd6 was Svidler's attempt to avoid the most drawish, miserable lines for black but after 6.Na3 he was on his own as was his opponent but apparently knew that 6...b5 was supposed to be played but nothing much more. 7.d3 asked Svidler to choose a setup and it was here he went very wrong. 7...Bg4 was possible as was following up his 7...Ne7 with 8...Ng6 but 8...c5 9...Nc6 was just too slow. After 14.d4 black was just in desperate trouble. 20...Qxe4 was an attempt to reduce the problems by black and after Kasimdzhanov couldn't find a kill his advantage gradually went away to nothing in time trouble on the run up to move 40. Draw.

Sergey Karjakin played 4...Bb4+ for the first time against the Catalan and Evgeny Tomashevsky got a small advantage. Black was doing fine for a while but in overlooking 18.Nb3 he was at least a bit worse. The players agreed that 21.Bd6 was white's best try for an advantage and quickly the game went to a draw.

The final game to finish saw Alexander Grischuk try a new line to him against the King's Indian. In his view it didn't go well. "I played the worst possible line against the kings indian because my friend recommended it to me. He said Rc1 was a very strong novelty but after I thought for almost one hour and I just could not find any way for me to play. Black just slowly starts to mate me." Grischuk who said of a later position "This is probably the most ugly position in my whole chess career. It's in fact even worse than it looks." Grischuk however did manage to make at least some sense of his setup and if there was a win at move 40 Nakamura couldn't find it so they repeated to draw.

So five draws and just one decisive game. I think part of the problem is that many of the players aren't competing enough and look awfully rusty. Either that or players such as Radjabov are getting over career crisis. I don't think it's a lack of will so one will hope for better after the first rest day tomorrow now they've had four games to get going.

Round 4 Standings: 1-2 Caruana, Gelfand 3pts 3-4 Nakamura, Svidler 2.5pts 5-8 Kasimdzhanov, Tomashevsky, Karjakin, Radjabov 2pts 9-10 Dominguez Perez, Grischuk 1.5pts 11-12 Mamedyarov, Andreikin 1pt

Round 5 Pairings Tuesday 7th October 2014: Karjakin-Kasimdzhanov, Gelfand-Tomashevsky, Nakamura-Dominguez Perez, Mamedyarov-Grischuk, Radjabov-Caruana, Svidler-Andreikin.

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 * ½ ½ . . . 1 . . . 1 . 3 2953
2. Gelfand, Boris g ISR 2748 ½ * . . . . . . ½ 1 . 1 3 2971
3. Nakamura, Hikaru g USA 2764 ½ . * ½ . . . . . ½ . 1 2868
4. Svidler, Peter g RUS 2732 . . ½ * ½ . . ½ . . 1 . 2835
5. Kasimdzhanov, Rustam g UZB 2706 . . . ½ * ½ . ½ ½ . . . 2 2727
6. Tomashevsky, Evgeny g RUS 2701 . . . . ½ * ½ . ½ ½ . . 2 2755
7. Karjakin, Sergey g RUS 2767 0 . . . . ½ * . 1 ½ . . 2 2773
8. Radjabov, Teimour g AZE 2726 . . . ½ ½ . . * . . ½ ½ 2 2731
9. Dominguez Perez, Leinier g CUB 2751 . ½ . . ½ ½ 0 . * . . . 2643
10. Grischuk, Alexander g RUS 2797 . 0 ½ . . ½ ½ . . * . . 2658
11. Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar g AZE 2764 0 . . 0 . . . ½ . . * ½ 1 2563
12. Andreikin, Dmitry g RUS 2722 . 0 0 . . . . ½ . . ½ * 1 2557
Round 4 (October 5, 2014)
Caruana, Fabiano - Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 1-0 34 D11 Slav Defence
Kasimdzhanov, Rustam - Svidler, Peter ½-½ 45 C69 Ruy Lopez Exchange
Tomashevsky, Evgeny - Karjakin, Sergey ½-½ 31 E00 Catalan
Dominguez Perez, Leinier - Gelfand, Boris ½-½ 33 B33 Sicilian Sveshnikov
Grischuk, Alexander - Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½ 48 E97 King's Indian Classical
Andreikin, Dmitry - Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ 41 E71 King's Indian 5.h3

Official video for round 4

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