Boris Gelfand Defeats Ernesto Inarkiev in Game 1 of Their Match

The event is taking place in Nazran.

On August 3, the first game of the Gelfand vs. Inarkiev match, which is a part of the Tower Concord Festival, was played at the Palace of Culture of Nazran, the biggest city of the Republic of Ingushetia. The Israeli grandmaster played with white pieces.

The opponents discussed the English Opening, where a pawn formation typical for the Hedgehog appeared. Thanks to a timely conducted breakthrough е4-е5, Gelfand achieved a small, but stable advantage to systematically intensify his pressure on the kingside and at the centre. Inarkiev was thinking a lot in order to find a precise way to equalize and not finding it. He got into a time trouble and, being very short of time, made several doubtful decisions. Gelfand won a pawn using a beautiful pendulum-like maneuver to convert his edge after the time control. 



The second game with a classical time control will take place on August 4. Ernesto Inarkiev will play White. 



In the morning of the same day, the Head of the Republic of Ingushetia Yunus-bek Yevkurov received the members of the Festival’s Organizing Committee. Deputy Chairperson of the Government Piatimat Ausheva, Minister of Physical Education and Sports Daud Alkhazurov, President of the International School Chess Union Alexander Kostiev, Chief Arbiter of the Festival Artiom Akhmetov, and Editor-in-chief of the RCF’s website Vladimir Barsky told the Head of the region about the Festival, noting that its programme is very extensive and interesting. Yunus-bek Yevkurov entrusted Daud Alkhazurov with a commission to develop a programme to support young chess players of Ingishetia, underlining that they should participate at least in 7-8 strong competitions per year in order to succeed. 

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