Thessaloniki R07: Caruana and Kamsky keep scoring

From May 22 to June 03, 2013, the fourth stage of the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2012-2013 is taking place in Thessaloniki, Greece. Twelve players are competing in a round robin tournament with time controls of 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes and an increment of 30 seconds per move for each player. The Grand Prix Series consists of six tournaments to be held over two years, with 18 top players, each participating in four of the six tournaments. The winner and second placed player overall of the Grand Prix Series will qualify for the Candidates Tournament to be held in March 2014.

Round seven report

Ivanchuk, Vassily - Grischuk, Alexander ½-½
Ivanchuk forced a repetition on move 13, and Grischuk was happy to have an easy draw with black.

Svidler, Peter - Ponomariov, Ruslan ½-½
Ponomariov's great choice of opening must have caught Svidler off-guard, since his approach to this Queen's Gambit Accepted was not superb. Ponomariov didn't fully equalize, but Svidler's edge was symbolic at most and too many pieces came off the board. A comfortable draw for Ruslan.

Kamsky has seen 1.d4 and is in deep contemplation between his usual solid opening or gambling with a Dutch. Today, his bets paid off.

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam - Kamsky, Gata 0-1
Gata's openings are rather predictable. He almost always will choose an a6 Slav against 1. d4... unless he feels he needs to win. In this case he will choose a Dutch, which is exactly what he did today against Kasimdzhanov. Kamsky was allowed to slowly improve his position on the kingside. He advanced his f-pawn too f4, doubled on the f-file, and started creating serious pressure while Kasimdzhanov was not creating much of anything in the position. The dubious 27.gxf4?! allowed Kamsky to crash through with a beautiful little combination, granting him two pieces for a rook and a winning advantage.

Romanian grandmaster Christian Chirila has provided the analysis for today. Chirila is currently attending the University of Texas at Dallas and is part of their top team. In 2007 he won the U-16 World Championship and as he is finishing his studies he plans to get back more seriously into chess, starting this summer with a small tour of tournaments in Canada.

Morozevich, Alexander - Caruana, Fabiano 0-1
Morozevich, not content with a draw, sacrificed an exchange in a valiant attempt to muddle the waters. He obtained some interesting light-square control in return, including powerful knights on f5 and d5. Caruana wasn't worse by any means, since his rook was rather active and his king was in no danger, despite having absolutely no pawn cover. The tragedy of this game came with 47.Nf1?? which allowed a nice tactical sequence, yielding Caruana a decisive amount of extra material.

Morozevich tried too hard, and Caruana (above) swiftly punished his mistake.

Bacrot, Etienne - Dominguez Perez, Leinier ½-½
Bacrot's advantage from the opening was minimal. Despite trying for many, many moves, Leinier simply defended accurately and passively and there was no way to break through.

Nakamura, Hikaru - Topalov, Veselin 1-0
Nakamura's quiet approach to this Najdorf gave him a passed pawn that was blockaded by an enemy knight. The main advantage of his position came in the form of swift development, which allowed him to simultaneously hit the pawns on c5 and e5, and Topalov had to part with one of them. After some mass simplifications the resulting endgame was difficult to hold for Topalov, despite the blockade. Nakamura's technique was again fabulous and he cleanly took the full point.

Nakamura played confidently and precisely, finally taking in that full point.

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All pictures by Anastasiya Karlovich

Schedule and results

The games start at 14:00h Eastern European Summer time, 15:00h Moscow, 7 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here. The commentary on Playchess begins one hour after the start of the games and is free for premium members.

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