The Week in Chess

The FIDE Grand Prix in Thessaloniki is turning out to be a memorable one for many reasons. The field features nothing but experienced and tough Grandmasters and there are winners and losers. After six rounds Gata Kamsky, Leinier Dominguez Perez and Fabiano Caruana are leading on 4/6 but equally there are unexpected strugglers in Hikaru Nakamura and Peter Svidler and chess legend Vassily Ivanchuk is in just terrible shape, almost incapable of playing today.

Gata Kamsky defeated Peter Svidler who has had a dangerous slump in form since his excellent Candidates performance. Kamsky was anxious to have a positional game and played a Reverse Dragon and got an excellent position. Kamsky was unhappy with elements of his play (18.Rc2, 21.e4) but Svidler's pieces remained dangerously uncoordinated and in spite of some dangerous looked tactics was busted at first time control.

Leader Leinier Dominguez Perez looked certain to win a fourth game in a row against a strangely out of form Hikaru Nakamura. Nakamura is generally fighting very well but only after getting into a terrible mess. Dominguez nursed a winning advantage into the ending but he started to find difficulties and when he went into a queen ending Nakamura found saving chances in a position which whilst lost was difficult. 60.Kg7 was the final missed win after which Nakamura drew confidently.

Vassily Ivanchuk apologised to his opponent Ruslan Ponomariov for playing so badly and it seems that he was incapable of any kind of normal thought in a game where he resigned in 19 moves. One has to wonder about Ivanchuk's ability to even complete this tournament and play against Anish Giri in Leon starting 7th June.

Fabiano Caruana was impressive in defeating Etienne Bacrot right from a new idea in the Scotch Opening down to bringing home the full point in the endgame.

Alexander Grischuk had some sort of advantage against Alexander Morozevich in a very complicated and interesting closed Ruy Lopez but by around move 32 the game was equal and agreed drawn in 44 moves.

Rustam Kadimzhanov came quite close to defeating Veselin Topalov with an impressive piece sacrifice in a Ruy Lopez but Topalov managed to defend really well and the game was drawn in 43 moves.

Round 6 Standings: Dominguez, Kamsky, Caruana 4pts, Ponomariov, Grischuk, Topalov, Morozevich 3.5pts, Kasimdzhanov 3pts, Svidler, Nakamura, Bacrot 2pts, Ivanchuk 1pt.

Round 7 29th May 2013 12pm BST: Ivanchuk-Grischuk, Svidler-Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov-Kamsky, Nakamura-Topalov, Bacrot-Dominguez, Morozevich-Caruana.