Tashkent R2: Morozevich strikes again, takes sole lead

The second stage of the 2012-2013 FIDE Grand Prix Series is taking place from November 21 to December 5th in the Gallery of Fine Art in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The games start at 14:00h local time (= 10:00h CET, 13:00h Moscow, 04:00 a.m. New York). The tournament has a prize fund of 240,000 Euros.

Round two report

Although the second round of the Tashkent Grand Prix had more than its fair share of draws, they weren't without a struggle. While some of the draws were fairly dry, others did teeter on the edge of victory without actually achieving it.

Of those, perhaps the closest of the non-winners was Peter Svidler (above) against Boris Gelfand when he penetrated to the seventh with his rook with a nasty advantage, only to withdraw it for unclear reasons, and thus the pressure.

Israeli GM Boris Gelfand

Alexander Morozevich (above left) delighted his fans by outplaying Fabiano Caruana in an endgame resulting from a Ruy Lopez Berlin, though not the usual mainline. As our GM commentator points out, in spite of his excellent play, White was unable to force a winning position without a fatal mistake. That said, it is very much the nature of Morozevich’s play, to keep the pressure at the maximum until even the hardiest opponent buckles.

GM commentary by Romain Edouard

With this win, Moro takes the early sole lead.

Leko-Mamedyarov: The Super-GM from Baku revealed at the press conference that his alarm rang 16 times (at 15 minute intervals), before he managed to wake up. It was already too late to prepare for the main lines, he said, so he went for rather unusual 3…c6. As a result Shakh killed the preparation of Peter Leko, who had spent a lot of time checking variations against the Caro-Kann. He spent too much time calculating all lines and ended up with seven seconds for five moves before the time control.

Even Moro seems impressed by Peter Leko's performance

"I remembered the game by Anatoly Karpov in Linares," Peter said, "where he had had only seven seconds for seven moves in a very complicated position but managed to make the best moves. And when time trouble had passed he spent another 53 minutes calculating the pawn ending and managed to draw." Peter followed the example and after the first time trouble, despite Black’s extra pawn White had enough compensation and and held the game. Shahriyar was full of admiration and said there were only very few GMs in the world who were capable of finding the best moves in so little time.

Wang Hao-Dominguez: As Wang Hao pointed out during the press conference his preparation finished after 8…c6, a move he had missed during his home preparation. The position became quite sharp but both opponents played creatively and it’s not easy to suggest any improvements for both sides.

Perhaps, the best chance for White was to take b4 pawn on move 29th hoping to convert the game into the endgame with extra pawn (four against three on the kingside). Later on the b4 pawn was advanced and became the real danger, so the Chinese player finished the game with perpetual check.

Kasimdzhanov-Ponomariov: Rustam Kasimdzhanov was not ready for a discussion in the Breyer Variation, which could have happened in the game, so he chose this line in order to avoid some possible variations.

Rustam feared that Black had to face some problems in the middle game, but it didn’t really happened as massive exchanges followed and the was converted into a drawish ending.

Ruslan Ponomarion proposed 15. Ra5 instead of Ra7, which could give more promising chances for White.

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Standings after two rounds

All photos by Anastasiya Karlovich

Schedule and results

Video Reports

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