Berlin Grand Prix Round One

The third leg of the FIDE World Chess Grand Prix started with four decisive games and four games ended in a draw. The 16 players are split into four pools with four participants each and day 1 saw one draw and one win in each pool. Levon Aronian, Leinier Dominguez, Alexandr Predke and Nikita Vitiugov left the playing hall with a full point. There will be six rounds in total in the group stage and the winner of each pool progresses to the knockout semi-final, and the two winners meet in the final.

Pool A:

Aronian won a second Grand Prix game in the same sharp variation of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted. In the semi-finals of the first stage of the Grand Prix Series in Berlin, he defeated Lenier Dominguez. Today, Levon scored a crucial win against Hikaru Nakamura. Levon expected anything but not this line today from Hikaru but still had “a couple of ideas” in this variation. According to Hikaru, the critical moment came on the move 20 where he spent most of his time thinking to play or not to play g5. He didn’t go for it and ended up in a worse position. “If Levon would have played 25.Qa5 instead, of 25.Qa7 I would probably just resign the game, I was just ready to go home”, said the American player with a smile on his face, still admitting that the game was all the way much better for his opponent even after 25. Qa7. Hikaru put stubborn defence and Levon still needed quite a few moves to score a full point, but the result was never in question.

Andrey Esipenko didn’t manage to give himself a birthday present in his game against Grigoriy Oparin, and the game eventually finished in a draw. Nevertheless, the present was “delivered” a few days earlier when Esipenko became the last participant to join the third stage of the Grand Prix Series by replacing Dmitry Andreikin at the last moment.
Andrey turned 20 today and as a real professional player spent the whole day playing chess. His opponent Grigoriy Oparin came well-prepared for the game and knew the position until move 25. The ending turned out to be slightly better for Andrey but Grigoriy defended well and after 56 moves the peace was signed.

Pool B:

Daniil Dubov and Leinier Dominguez played a very eventful game. Daniil, who had White pieces today, got a very promising position out of the opening and Leinier was spending lots of time trying to find a way to stop White’s initiative on the King’s side. During the post-game interview, the American Grandmaster noted he missed the Queen’s manoeuvre Qe4-Qh4 and thought his position looked very dubious at that point. He exchanged his Bishop for the Knight on f3, opening g-file for his opponent, but managed to survive the toughest times of the game by moving his knights to h5 and f6 squares.

Later in the game White won an exchange but the superior position of Black’s pieces gave him more than enough compensation. It was time for Daniil to look for drawish chances and at the moment when it seemed the worst was left behind, Daniil was the last to make a mistake. Dominguez managed to win after Dubov blundered heavily in a seemingly balanced position.

The second game of Pool B was a peaceful duel between local GM Vincent Keymer and GM from Azerbaijan Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. White couldn’t create anything substantial and after numerous exchanges game was transferred into the bishops ending and eventually finished in a draw.

Pool C:

Once again Sam Shankland surprised everyone with his home preparation in today’s game against his compatriot Wesley So. He played the novelty on the 12th move and has analysed everything at home until move 23 with a different move order. “The whole position looks symmetrical but it’s not so easy for Black as White gets first on d5 square with the knight and Black’s knight on f6 is passive”, noted Sam after the game. He managed to win a pawn in a rook ending and kept some winning chances but Wesley So defended precisely and hold the draw.

Meanwhile, in the other encounter, Alexandr Predke defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in style after only 23 moves. One inaccurate decision in the opening led to the catastrophe for the French player, who didn’t manage to survive a scary attack on his King. Alexandr remembered that short castling was not a good move for Black and was sure that after 15.g4 Black would end up in a difficult position.

Despite the result, the French Grandmaster doesn’t lose hope: “I know I just need to win this tournament and obviously it’s not a good start for me but there are a few more games to go and I will be ready to fight”.

Pool D.

Anish Giri didn’t follow recommendations on his own Chessable course in the Petroff Defence but decided to try a new line starting with 9.Be3. Yu Yangyi knew the line but forgot to check it before the game and had to play without preparation.

White sacrificed a pawn for better development and “convinced” Black to give the present back later in the game. It was obvious for Anish he got the position with an advantage in the middle game but it was not easy to find the precise way to convert it into a full point. “Probably I played well until very far but it took me a lot of time. To be honest I can’t say I regret taking the time as I could not see all those ideas in the game at first.” Yu Yangyi found the way to create counter threats on the Queen’s side and the game ended in a draw after 32 moves.

The game Vitiugov-Tabatabaei was the last one to finish. Vitiugov got a big advantage out of the opening. “I believe that after 14…f6 White is significantly better, but later on Black definitely had some drawing chances,” said Nikita after the game. Amin agreed that the biggest chance to equalize the game came on move 30 after White played 30.Ra5. “I should have played 30…Re1+ and then continue Rd8”, explained the Iranian Grandmaster, who was in time trouble at this moment and missed this last opportunity. It took Nikita more than 30 moves to convert his advantage in the Rook endgame and claim his first victory in the 3rd stage of the Grand Prix Series.

The pairings for the second round are as follows:

Pool A
Levon Aronian – GrigoriyOparin
Hikaru Nakamura  – Andrey Esipenko

Pool B
Daniil Dubov – Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
Leinier Dominguez – Vincent Keymer

Pool C
Alexandr Predke – Wesley So
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave – Sam Shankland

Pool D
Nikita Vitiugov  – Yu Yangyi
Amin M. Tabatabaei – Anish Giri

Leading partners supporting the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022:

Kaspersky as the Official Cybersecurity Partner;
Algorand as the Official Blockchain Partner;
Prytek as the Technology Transfer Partner;
FIDE Online Arena as the official Partner.

The second round of the Grand Prix in Berlin will be played on 23 March at 3 PM local (CET) time.

Photos:  World Chess