The Week in Chess

There was no change at the top of the FIDE Grand Prix in Tashkent with the leaders Dmitry Andreikin and Hikaru Nakamura both holding draws as black. Perhaps the most important result was Caruana's win against Gelfand, he needs to avoid a disaster here to back up his joint win in Baku in the chase for places in the Candidates and returns to 50%. Sergey Karjakin won a rather odd game against Anish Giri. There is apparently not a rest day on Wednesday but on Thursday.

Hikaru Nakamura felt obliged to try at least to win as black against Rustam Kasimdzhanov but drew a fascinating Dutch Defence. The players showed an awful lot in the press conference, notes in the PGN.

Dmitry Andreikin drew a Bf4 Queen's Gambit in much the same way his opponent Jakovenko did against Gelfand earlier in the event. This whole line sees black trying to avoid a bad ending but having quite a bit of activity. There was an interesting exchange sacrifice available at one point. The game finished in a draw.

Baadur Jobava said there was a reason for his very wild play today but he couldn't explain to the press conference. He played the over the board inspiration of 6...h5 vs the Advanced Caro Kann against Maxim Vachier-Lagrave and maybe if he'd met 8.Ne1?! with f6 in the next couple of moves it would have been justified. He did keep finding ways to complicate an increasingly bad position 30.Bc3 was absolutely the cleanest finish missed by MVL. In the end he allowed the Georgian to escape with a draw.

Fabiano Caruana played a very soft variation of the Nimzo-Indian against Boris Gelfand and most likely black had completely equalised after only a few moves. Instead Gelfand never quite killed Caruana's chances 20...dxc5 Gelfand had to be accurate and frustrated 23...Rxc5 made life harder and 24...Rxa5 lost to a relatively simple tactic. Still important in the race for qualification as both led the Grand Prix after Baku and were struggling here.

Teimour Radjabov vs Shakhriyar Mamedyarov finished in a quick draw after all the pieces came off. It could have got exciting but the players seemed happy enough to share the point.

Sergey Karjakin won the final game to finish beating Anish Giri in a Taimanov Sicilian by transposition. To be honest it looked like Giri didn't really know what he was doing and he didn't really believe in his his rare 8...h5 against 7.Qf3, itself not the main line. Karjakin got a big advantage but couldn't quite finish things off. Giri was right back in the game until 28...e5? blundered his entire position away after 29.Qa6!

Round 7 Standings: 1-2 Andreikin, Nakamura 4.5/7 3-5 Jobava, Vachier-Lagrave, Mamedyarov 4pts 6-9 Radjabov, Caruana, Jakovenko, Karjakin 3.5 10 Giri 3pts 11-12 Kasimdzhanov, Gelfand 2pts

Round 8 Pairings Wednesday 29th 9am: Gelfand-Jobava, Andreikin-Vachier-Lagrave, Giri-Jakovenko, Mamedyarov-Karjakin, Nakamura-Radjabov, Caruana-Kasimdzhanov