The Week in Chess

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave kept a half point lead over the field after a draw with Teimour Radjabov in Round 3 of the Tashkent FIDE Grand Prix. Nakamura, Andreikin and Karjakin are half a point behind.

Jobava Baadur won on the black side of a Fort Knox Variation of the French Defence against Rustam Kasimdzhanov after getting the better of the opening. Kasimdzhanov decided he could liquidate to a draw by grabbing a pawn on a7 but missed a fine series of ideas starting with 25...Nd4 and ending with 27...Qd7.

Boris Gelfand felt he got a Benoni with an extra tempo for black, an interesting, playable position. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov also thought it was fine for black but not in Gelfand's style and he was willing to pay the price of that tempo. "Black is, for sure, OK." Mamedyarov went wrong with 16.Rae1 and after 16...Qb6 he returned with 17.Ra1 but he pointed out they lost an hour over this decision "30 minutes for him and 30 minutes for me." They later reached a "for sure, drawn position" in an ending where white had bishop and two pawns for a Rook. It seems in fact that Mamedyarov could have kept perhaps a big advantage after 31.Qb6 but he feared Qg5 which looks dangerous but after 32.Rb1 doesn't seem to be and the black a-pawn drops and white's a-pawn runs. Mamedyarov found one final practical chance sacrificing the exchange for two pawns which required good calculation from both players and in the end Gelfand blundered with 47...Rxg2 instead of 47...Kd6 and suddenly Mamedyarov was queening a pawn.

Teimour Radjabov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave played a long line of theory of the Najdorf Sicilian where they had even studied the endgame in some detail. 27...Qf8 was the novelty taking queens off. White should be better according to Radjabov but in practice black seemed to know what he was doing.

Sergey Karjakin beat Dmitry Jakovenko in a Reti. Jakovenko thought he had a bad position out of the opening after missing the move 7.Nb3 out of his preparation. Later he gave up a pawn to win the bishop pair and probably had enough compensation at some point but it turned out to be more tricky than he expected and he lost the endgame. Later the players wondered if 29...Bxd2 30.Bxd2 Bxc4 31.b6 Ba6 might be sufficient to hold in a bishops of opposite colours ending.

Fabiano Caruana played 15.Nge4, a rare move, in a variation of the Berlin Defence he has played many times before in a game against Dmtry Andreikin. Caruana was highly critical of the accuracy of his play and he couldn't make anything of any advantage he may have had and the game finished in a draw.

Hikaru Nakamura played for a small technical advantage against Anish Giri. Play was very technical and required a lot of accurate calculation. Giri was worried but in the end he managed to simplify to a draw.

Round 3 Standings: 1 Vachier-Lagrave 2.5/3 2-4 Nakamura, Andreikin, Karjakin 2pts 5-8 Radjabov, Giri, Mamedyarov, Jobava 1.5pts 9-11 Caruana, Gelfand, Jakovenko 1pts 12 Kasimdzhanov 0.5pts

Round 4 Pairings Friday 24th October 2014 10am BST: Gelfand-Jakovenko, Vachier-Lagrave-Karjakin, Jobava-Radjabov, Andreikin-Kasimdzhanov, Giri-Caruana, Mamedyarov-Nakamura