Aronian, Dominguez, Predke, and Vitiugov lead the FIDE GP after Round 1
Round 1 of the third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 ended with GMs Levon Aronian, Leinier Dominguez, Alexandr Predke, and Nikita Vitiugov leading their Groups.
Pool A
The game that grabbed commentators’ attention very quickly was Aronian-Nakamura. The two GMs have faced each other in the Leg 1 finals, with Nakamura winning the tiebreaks. In Round 1 of Leg 3, Aronian showed once more his excellent preparation and in less than 10 minutes, the players had made 16 moves!
After Aronian’s 24.Qa2 move, Nakamura was in a very unpleasant position. “I think Aronian is absolutely winning” GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko commented. Eventually, Aronian cashed out the advantage despite Nakamura’s resourceful defense.
The second game of the Group, Esipenko-Oparin ended in a draw, which leaves Aronian as the sole leader of Group A after Round 1.
Pool B
Dominguez is the clear leader of Group B after his win against Dubov in Round 1. Dubov made a fatal mistake in an equal endgame, while Keymer drew an uneventful game against Mamedyarov.
Pool C
Another truly exciting game was Predke-MVL. GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko was very shocked by the quick turn of events in the game and commented: “It’s surprising that MVL ends in such trouble. We’re talking opening catastrophe”! Eventually, Predke won the game in 23 moves after an inspiring king attack.
The second game of Group C was Shankland-So which ended in a bare kings position, leaving Predke the clear leader of the group.
Pool D
The Giri-Yu game ended in a draw after 32 moves, with the Dutch GM failing to exploit his advantage against the Chinese GM.
On the other hand, Vitiugov-Tabatabaei was the last game to finish. Vitiugov had a big advantage and eventually won a long rook endgame to lead Group D after Round 1.
Join our live stream with GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko and WIM Jesse February and watch the games.
