The Week in Chess

The tenth round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Tashkent saw all the games drawn and some quite tired looking chess. There were also a couple of tetchy press conferences. The upshot is that Dmitry Andreikin takes a half point lead into his game against Anish Giri in the final round.

Andreikin did not like his solid opening against Boris Gelfand because it lacked counter play. It was a tough position but Gelfand thought it his advantage was "nothing special" and after 29..c5 the worst was over for black and the game went into a drawn rook and pawn soon after.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov did well to take Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's comments about his overoptimism in good part, especially as MVL's contention that he was the only one playing for a win were flatly contradicted by the computer evaluation and the lines Mamedyarov was showing, albeit in a sharp position. Mamedyarov eventually did get a winning position but it was still tricky and MVL somehow survived to a draw.

It might have been better if Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Teimour Radjabov had switched colours as they both seemed to like the other's position. This strange game eventually ended in a draw.

Fabiano Caruana has given the impression he's just hanging on in this event until he can go on holiday. Today he got in terrible trouble in the middle game but fortunately for him a combination of mutual time trouble and the tricky nature of the win meant he eventually escaped with a draw.

The final game to finish was that between Anish Giri and Baadur Jobava. Jobava said at the start "I'm completely out of oil after yesterday's loss." Nevertheless it was a "fighting game." At the start of the press conference Giri looked thoroughly fed up after letting a position that must have been very close to winning drift to a draw. Jobava said he didn't know how he drew the game in the end.

In the middle of the press conference Jobava asked Giri what he was doing in a position where the players potentially started to repeat. Giri answered in a slightly ironic way (possibly not happy with the line of questioning) saying that he was entitled to repeat in time trouble and that his opponent's attack was hardly anything to be worried about.

Jobava took offense in turn saying to Giri

"If you continue rude I will say a few words with you and it’ll be over this press conference, so speak normally, ok… Not smile like an idiot. I’m not the guy who you can ironic, yeah. Speak normal. Show some respect to your opponent.".

You can read more of the background to this in the Chess24 Tashkent report Jobava – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Giri thought Jobava started swearing at himself after move 40.

Round 10 standings: 1 Andreikin 6.5pts 2-3 Nakamura, Mamedyarov 6pts 4-5 Vachier-Lagrave, Jobava, 5.5pts 6-8 Radjabov, Karjakin, Caruana 5pts 9 Jakovenko, Giri 4.5pts 11 Kasimdzhanov 3.5pts 12 Gelfand 3pts

Final Round 11 8am GMT one hour earlier than before: Radjabov-Gelfand, Karjakin-Kasimdzhanov, Jakovenko-Caruana, Vachier-Lagrave-Nakamura, Jobava-Mamedyarov, Andreikin-Giri.