Leader’s Downfall and Russians’ Comeback

Round eight of the Vugar Gashimov Memorial in the review of Eteri Kublashvili.

The penultimate round of the Vugar Gashimov Memorial was a lot of fight as there was not a single game that would last less than 3.5 hours. 

The tournament leader Shakhriyar Mamedyarov went down as Black to Radoslaw Wojtaszek. The game was handled into the English Opening and was rich in sharp tactical struggle. The Polish grandmaster admitted that his opening idea made a hit at long last. 

White sacrificed his castling right in favor of a direct kingside offensive in the style of patriarch masters. 

Wojtaszek – Mamedyarov 
  

 
Radoslaw labelled 15…Qd7 as an error and pointed out to the following line: 15…Nd7 16. e5 Nс2+ 17. Kf1 Nxe5 18. Nxe5 Bxe5 19. gxh5 Qc8 20. Rg4 Qf5 21. dxe5 with a “crazy position.” 

Wojtaszek was going to meet any other move with 16. Qh4, as happened in the game. 

16…Nс2+ resulted in a very intriguing position. By this time the Azeri grandmaster had minus one hour on his clock.  

17. Kf1 Nxd4 

It took Mamedyarov another 40 minutes to make this move. An alternative is 17…Nxa1 18. gxh5 Bf6 19. Bg5 Kg7 20. Bxf6+ exf6 21. Nf4 with a double-edge game. 

18. Nexd4 Bxd4 19. gxh5 Bf6 20. Bg5 



20…Bxb2  

Wojtaszek voiced a more tenacious 20…Qe6 in this position. 

21. Re1 Qd3+ 22. Kg2 f6 23. Bh3 g5 24. Nxg5 Rf7 25. Nxf5, and White won shortly after.   

Vladimir Kramnik has broken out of his losing streak upon defeating Michael Adams as White in Gucci Piano. White got a promising position and occupied the b-file.  In an attempt to fend off the opponent's threats on the queenside and in the center, Black started playing passively instead of creating counter threats on the kingside. The opponent’s inert defense allowed Kramnik to add on by seizing the c-file to make Black's life considerably harder. Adams committed a fatal blunder towards the first time control. 

Kramnik – Adams 



33…Rd7? 34. Rc7 Rb6 35. Qa7 Ra6 36. Qb8+ Kh7 37. Rc8 Ng6 38. Rh1 Nh5 



39. Ng5+! hxg5 40. hxg5 Nf4+ 41. gxf4 Black resigns. 

Sergey Karjakin has also scored his first victory in round eight as White over Pavel Eljanov. In the words of Karjakin and Ljubojevic, Black’s idea involving a piece sacrifice on the kingside to give the white king a good run around the board was brilliant, but without any fatal risk at that. Sergey Karjakin’s precise play neutralized all Black’s direct threats. 

A position with non-standard material balance of White’s two bishops versus Black’s two pawns and a rook arose after what was almost a forced sequence of moves. Sergey’s evaluation of the resulting ending was equality, but Pavel lost a pawn in time trouble and his situation worsened significantly. In the followup struggle Black failed to hold together his position in which the power of a bishop pair was on a full display. 

Veselin Topalov and Pentala Harikrishna were busy carrying out lengthy maneuvering in a Ruy Lopez setup that looked more promising for White. However, Black’s defensive resources were adequate to prevent Topalov from crushing through. A draw was agreed on move 55. 

So – Radjabov was the longest game of the day. All in all, the English Opening encounter was fairly tranquil, but the American was unrelenting in probing hard and at last unearthing definite winning chances in the same-colored (dark-squared) bishop endgame. Although White won a pawn, Black managed to trade a pair of kingside pawns to allow Radjabov sacrificing his bishop for the dangerous h-pawn and liquidating into a drawn ending. 

Despite having suffered a loss, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has retained his sole lead with 5 points to his credit. Half a point behind are Wesley So and Veselin Topalov. A large group of participants, including Sergey Karjakin, Vladimir Kramnik, Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Michael Adams, is behind by a whole point. The suspense is getting more and more intense!  

Let me remind you that the share of first is to be decided on a tie-break. 

The ultimate round, scheduled on 13:00 p.m. Moscow time, features the following pairings: 

P. Eljanov - V. Kramnik, T. Radjabov - S. Karjakin, P. Harikrishna - W. So, S. Mamedyarov - V. Topalov, M. Adams - R. Wojtaszek.