Tashkent R3: Caruana bounces back, Mamedyarov also wins

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 three report

The playing hall at the start of the round

Caruana-Kamsky: Caruana managed to get a complex position with a huge space advantage. However it wasn't absolutely clear if he would be able to break through. Fabiano noted he was surprised by Kamsky's quite passive defense. In his opinion American player should have tried to organize counterplay with either e5 or f5. 23...h6 and 24…g5 created additional weaknesses in Black's position and later on White managed to convert his advantage into a full point.

GM commentary by Romain Edouard

Fabiano Caruana and Gata Kamsky at the start of their round three game

Top seed Fabiano Caruana with a win, loss and draw so far

Karjakin-Wang Hao: The French Defence was played in the longest game of the third round. Sergey Karjakin got a slight advantage after the opening and started to increase his initiative. 19. Nc6 turned to be a big mistake, as Black immediately solved his problems and equalized the chances after 19…Bc6 20.Bc6 Nd5. As Sergey admitted at the press-conference he missed 32.Rf2 and had to defend a very unpleasant endgame with a pawn down.

GM commentary by Romain Edouard

Mamedyarov-Svidler: A rarely seen line in Gruenfeld (e3) was played in this game and, as Mamedyarov pointed out during the press conference, 6…e6 was not the best decision made by Peter. Afterwards Peter Svidler missed a chance to sacrifice a queen after 18...Nxd7 19. Nxd7 Rc3 20. Rxd8 Rxd8. There were good chances to hold for a draw if he chose this line, but instead he surprisingly gave an exchange.

The game was rather one-sided and Shakh managed to convert his advantage in a very convincing way

Press officer Anastasiya Karlovich analyses with Ruslan Ponomariov and Peter Leko

Ponomariov-Leko: Ruslan Ponomariov was surprised by Peter Leko’s choice in the opening, as he didn’t expect the Najdorf today. As a result the Ukrainian GM tried to avoid the main variations and chose the line with h3. During the press conference the former FIDE world champion pointed out he was not able to get any advantage from the white pieces and let his opponent get quite comfortable play. Peter Leko confessed he still hadn’t recovered after yesterday’s game. Even though the position was playable, Hungarian Grandmaster preferred to make a relatively quick draw after three-time repetition in order to get some rest.

Gelfand-Morozevich: For the first time Alexander Morozevich (above left) came to the press conference with his opponent. It was a tough battle with many variations left behind the curtain. The players stepped onto unknown ground relatively quickly, leaving the main theoretical lines aside. Already 10...Qd7 appeared to be a novelty. Both players agreed during the press conference that 15.Qb2 was a bit of a soft move and White should have tried 15.e4 Qe4 16.f4. There was no a clear way for Black to equalize after 18.Bd4 as well. Boris confessed he had missed Black's strong idea 19.Bc8 followed by 20.Ra7, exchanging White's active rook. It became clear for Boris Gelfand that White had lost his chances for advantage. Israeli player went for series of exchanges and kept the balance in the game.

Anastasiya Karlovich with Rustam Kasimzdhanov and Leiner Dominguez

Dominguez-Kasimdzhanov: Leiner Dominguez spent a lot of time in the opening trying to find any advantage. It seemed Rustam Kasimzdhanov was equipped better than his opponent and didn’t face much trouble in the opening. During the press conference Rustam admitted he was surprised by 20.Qd8, as the endgame turned to be slightly better for Black. He continued to play actively, managed to win a pawn and got promising chances in the knight endgame. However, Leiner Diminguez defended courageously and game finished in a draw.

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Standings after three rounds

Game summaries by the official site, photos by Anastasiya Karlovich

Schedule and results

Video Reports

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