The Week in Chess

Gata Kamsky continued his wonderful form to beat fellow US player Hikaru Nakamura in Round 8 of the Thessaloniki FIDE Grand Prix. Nakamura's opening play has been of surprisingly poor quality getting him into all sorts of trouble. Today he played a strategically risky variation of the French and 15...Qa3? was just plain bad after 16.Bg6+ Kd8 the rest was a matter of technique for Kamsky. Kamsky thus leads alone on 6/8 going into the second rest day. This was one of 5 decisive games of 6 in the eighth round.

Fabiano Caruana was under pressure for a long time on the black side of a very complicated Ruy Lopez against Alexander Grischuk. 40...Kh6 was dubious and left Caruana with a difficult endgame which he nevertheless managed to hold.

Leinier Dominguez Perez returned to winning ways managing to keep Alexander Morozevich's dangerous tactics quiet until Morozevich started to go wrong. The game remained competitive but 23...Be6 was not a good idea and 31...Qb8? losing for Morozevich after which Dominguez smoothly brought home the point. Both Caruana and Dominguez are only half a point behind Kamsky.

Veselin Topalov took one risk too many against Etienne Bacrot and went down to defeat. 8.g3 and 12.b4 left Topalov struggling due to a pin of the Nf3. The game remained complicated but Bacrot played very well to bring home his advantage.

Rustam Kasimdzhanov seemed somewhat surprised to end up beating Ruslan Ponomariov in an extremely complicated Ruy Lopez Arkhangelsk which even after the game he didn't seem to fully understand. 28.Bf5 was probably some kind of mistake but 28...Re3 wasn't the winning blow Kasimdzhanov thought and indeed 29.Qa1 or Qc1 were better for Ponomariov. 29.Qb2? was a mistake after which Kasimdzhanov was better. Later Ponomariov incorrectly claimed a draw by three-fold repetition a sure sign of nerves and then went on to lose a difficult endgame.

Peter Svidler showed faith in the variation of the Ruy Lopez he lost to Leinier Dominguez Perez earlier in the event. Svidler had analysed the opening deeply and this time this work seemed to pay off. Ivanchuk played reasonably well compared to some of his recent losses in the tournament but his position became increasingly difficult once Svidler defused a dangerous exchange sacrifice. Svidler stood clearly better and he eventually completely stablised his position and was just and exchange up.

Round 8 Standings: Kamsky 6pts, Dominguez, Caruana 5.5pts, Grischu 4.5pts, Kasimdzhanov, Ponomariov 4pts, Svidler, Bacrot, Topalov, Morozevich 3.5pts, Nakamura 3pts, Ivanchuk 1.5pts.

Round 9 Pairings Saturday 1st June 2013 12pm: Svidler-Grischuk, Kasimdzhanov-Ivanchuk, Nakamura-Ponomariov, Bacrot-Kamsky, Morozevich-Topalov, Caruana-Dominguez.