The Week in Chess

Fabiano Caruana won a sharp Gruenfeld against Peter Svidler to lead the Baku Grand Prix alone on 4.5/6. Svidler decided to surprise Caruana with a newish idea of 10... a6. Svidler's 13...h5 was a bad move with 14.Bc5 Qf6 15.Bd4 Qd6 leaving Svidler in a poor position. Caruana questioned whether 16.g4 was the right move, the computers said it led to a huge advantage but neither player pointed to 18.e5 as being inaccurate (18.Nge2!) Svidler sacrificed a piece for good compensation but was steadily out-calculated in the following complications and after 27...Rh8? Caruana brought home the full point quickly.

Alexander Grischuk has mixed poor form with ambition, not a good mix, and today he just went too far against Teimour Radjabov who played an excellent game. After 17.Bg2 or 17.Bb2 the position would have finished in a draw. 19.b4 was just bad 19.g4 might have even given Grischuk the advantage. Grischuk got into terrible time trouble but still thought he was in the game until 27...Qe8! after which his position quickly disintegrated.

Dmitry Andreikin decided to surprise Rustam Kasimdzhanov with the Philidor Defence which worked but it was Kasimdzhanov who seemed to have a better handle on things and by move 18 at the expense of time he'd given black a miserable position. Andreikin launched a desperate king-side counterattack in response to his queen-side disintegrating. 30.Rxf4! broke black's counter attack and simplified the position so Kasimdzhanov could find an easy win.

Sergey Karjakin hoped to surprise Boris Gelfand but didn't after 8.f4 Gelfand replied with the novelty 8...g6 "I was hoping you didn't know about this move." Karjakin. Gelfand summed up the following play as black is positionally fine and only has to make sure he doesn't lose any material. Gelfand was then better (the computer suggests 26...Bxg4) but Gelfand was happy with the draw.

Neither Leinier Dominguez Perez or Shakhriyar Mamedyarov are anywhere near their best in this event. Mamedyarov looked to be a tempo down on one variation the Ruy Lopez but as played it didn't seem to matter much and the game was more or less balanced. Dominguez again admitted to a bad error in his calculations intending 29.Qxd3 which loses to 29...Rxf3! He said he was pretty lucky he had an acceptable alternative. Game drawn.

Evgeny Tomashevsky was a bit better after playing a rare sideline to the Lasker Queen's Gambit after being surprised by Hikaru Nakamura. The position remained drawish, maybe Nakamura wasn't the most accurate at one stage but Tomashevsky was never close to a winning advantage.

Round 6 Standings: 1 Caruana 4.5pts 2 Gelfand 4pts 3-5 Radjabov, Nakamura, Kasimdzhanov 3.5pts 6-8 Tomashevsky, Karjakin, Svidler 3pts 9 Dominguez Perez 2.5pts 10-11 Grischuk, Mamedyarov 2pts 12 Andreikin 1.5pts

Round 7 Thursday 9th Oct 11am BST Pairings: Gelfand-Kasimdzhanov, Nakamura-Karjakin, Mamedyarov-Tomashevsky, Radjabov-Dominguez, Svidler-Grischuk, Andreikin-Caruana