14 March 2016
Fighting an Isolani
Round two of the candidates tournament in the review of Eteri Kublashvili.
The turmoil of the initial competition days is gradually settling down, and, as a consequence of it, the organizational errors decrease in numbers. Thus, the Worldchess.com site has launched broadcasting in the Russian-language, so that from now on everyone willing is able to listen live to one of his favorite commentators Sergey Shipov. The grandmaster works at the business center "White Square", which is located near the metro station "Belorusskaya", where a row of associated events, which we have narrated about in detail on our website, will be hosted, and all fans may thus feel free to actively visit the alternative site of the Candidates Tournament.
Boris Gelfand and Sergey Shipov commenting in the Russian Chess House (Photo credit: Vladimir Barsky)
This set of floor chess will surely witness a lot of exciting battles (Photo credit: Vladimir Barsky)
The press conference format has been slightly modified as well: now participants initially comment on events that have taken place over the board in a studio in the English language, and later individually communicate with the mass media representatives in Russian or in English-Russian with the assistance of an interpreter in the person of your correspondent.
An accommodation for the press center has been finally organized, which can boast such luxuries as tea, coffee and snacks. Security guards are noticed gradually becoming slightly less austere, which cannot but rejoice you.
The event is continually visited by the distinguished guests. On the day of the second round the Central Telegraph building saw Arkady Dvorkovich, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Vladimir Kramnik, and Vladimir Vorozheikin. The former World Champion was a guest of the English live broadcast, and, together with Alexandra Kosteniuk, he was busy enthusiastically commenting on the games.
The chess players are not yet lagging behind the established schedule: one decisive game and three draws. The fans of Sergey Karjakin (who came to the tournament with his wife Galiya) have celebrate a real feast as the Russian, playing the white pieces, has defeated Hikaru Nakamura.
In the course of the press conference Hikaru admitted that basically he played quite badly and did many things wrong that day.
He found himself in a nasty position with an isolani on d5 in the Queen's Indian defense, and Karjakin went on to skillfully capitalize on this shortcoming of the Black’s setup.
Karjakin – Nakamura
Nakamura: "It's funny that, maybe, in this position I am only slightly worse. Then I just completely lost my mind and made this stupid move 29...Nxg3? Correct was 29...Nxd4 30. Bxd4 Bxd4 31 exd4 Nf6 – even though White is better, this position is most likely to be still a holdable one."
In the game, however, Black ended up losing a piece following 30. fxg3 Nxd4 31. Bxd4 Bxd4 32. exd4 Qe3+ 33. Qf2 Qxd3 34. Rc7 f5 35. Rxb7 and resigned a couple of moves after.
Peter Svidler and Veselin Topalov finished their game ahead of all other pairs. The Russian joked that he was expecting Veselin to come up with a more aggressive choice of opening to meet 1.e4 following Veselin’s loss of yesterday to Anand, but the game has developed to the Berlin. On move fifteen Black employed a novelty as compared to Carlsen-Caruana played in December. White failed to discover a refutation, and the game gradually petered out to its natural drawish result.
The second to arrive at the press conference room were Vishy Anand and Levon Aronian. The former World Champion was in great mood, bulleting out lines originating from the Queen's Gambit, while Levon behaved in a more restrained manner. In the game Anand demonstrated strong preparation and managed to equalize the game.
The longest game of the round happened between Caruana and Giri, although judging by the standards of the classical control the duration of four and a half hours is not that much. The opponents attempted to sort things out in the Berlin, but in a sharper of its lines as compared to the game played between Svidler and Topalov. As was noted by Caruana, he felt that he had a slight advantage, but could not transform it into something tangible. Without committing any significant errors along the way, the American allowed his counterpart equalizing the game and making a draw.
After completion of two rounds Sergey Karjakin and Viswanathan Anand are leading the field with 1.5 points. In round three we look forward to new exciting encounters: Nakamura - Svidler, Giri - Karjakin, Anand – Caruana, and Topalov - Aronian.
