The Week in Chess

Sergey Karjakin inflicted a second defeat on Alexander Morozevich to take the lead in the FIDE Grand Prix in Tashkent. Morozevich was perhaps even better at one point but drifted and missed a huge tactic in the ending to even lost the game. (52...Rc7+? loses to 53.Rc6!! with decisive running pawns. 52...bxa6 should draw).

Fabiano Caruana played the Scandinavian against a struggling Leinier Dominguez Perez and quite quickly at least equalised whilst retaining the somewhat better chances. 31.c4? was a mistake but maybe not the decisive one, Caruana had to work hard right into the ending (40...e5 is a dangerous line he had to calculate carefully) and he eventually converted an extra queenside pawn.

Gata Kamsky missed an opportunity late into a tough struggle with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 58.Rg6? Rf3+ (Re4 is the chance) 59.Kh2 (Rf4 returning to the winning position) in a game that was generally dynamically balanced.

The remaing games were drawn: Leko-Kasimdzhanov (if white had anything Leko wasn't accurate enough to exploit it), Wang Hao-Svidler (comfortable draw for black) and Ponomariov-Gelfand (lively Sicilian finishing in perpetual check).

Leaders: Caruana and Karjakin 4.5 points, Mamedyarov, Kasimdzhanov and Morozevich on 4 points.