FIDE Grand Prix Berlin – Round 3 Recap

The local hero Vincent Keymer outplayed Daniil Dubov and joined Leinier Dominguez in the lead of Pool B. The rest of the games finished in a draw in the third round of the final stage of the Grand Prix series, thus Levon Aronian, Alexandr Predke, and Nikita Vitiugov kept their lead in other groups.

Photos: World Chess (Pierre Adonis)

Two more games could have finished decisively today. Grigoriy Oparin came close to upset Hikaru Nakamura, who eventually escaped with a draw. Sam Shankland had winning chances in the endgame with Alexandr Predke but could not make it work.

Pool A:

It was definitely the most existing game of the round. Grigoriy Oparin managed to guess his opponent’s choice in the opening, which turned out to be the Queens-Indian Defence. It has been already more than 5 years since Hikaru Nakamura played it for the last time in the tournaments, so he was not expecting the idea with h4-h5-h6. White quickly got quite a promising position but had to play precisely in order not to give a chance for Black to consolidate. A beautiful move 19.Bg6 came as a huge surprise to Hikaru, who simply forgot about this option. “I was very upset with myself during the game because essentially I blundered one move. In this line with 19.Bg6 and after 19…fg 20. Qe7 Rd5 White has this Re6. I simply have forgotten this move existed,” said Hikaru in his post-game interview. Similar to the game against Aronian played in round 1, the American player was ready to resign once his opponent would have played 20.Bb1. Grigoriy didn’t find the best continuation and opted for 20.Bh7, which gave Hikaru some hope to escape with a draw. Despite the lack of a pawn, Black certainly had some compensation due to the pair of Bishops and the activity of his pieces. After a few exchanges, the game ended in a draw after a three-fold repetition.

“After finding Bg6 it feels it would be nice to win the game but it is what it is,‘ said Grigoriy Oparin after the game was finished.

Andrey Esipenko and Levon Aronian headed for one of the lines of the Ruy Lopez but Andrey mixed something right in the opening and was clearly disappointed with his play. He had to show a certain level of creativity not to get into trouble and came up with an interesting idea 17.Bg5 which changed the track of the game. Levon Aronian saw the strongest continuation 17…Kh8 but started to see some ghosts in some lines as he pointed out after the game. He chose another option17…h6 and it turned out that White could force Black to trade the queens and kept the balance in the game.

After three rounds Levon is leading in the A group.

Pool B:

The Ragozin Variation was played in the game Mamedyarov – Dominguez and for the first time in the tournament, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was satisfied with the outcome of the opening. He came up with a very tricky idea Ba2 hoping to get a very strong attack on the King’s side. The American Grandmaster proved he has nerves of steel once again and found very precise moves to stop the ambitious plans of the Azeri Grandmaster.

17-year-old Vincent Keymer managed to break the series of draws in Berlin by defeating Daniil Dubov. Players chose a complicated line in Vienna Variation, where Daniil showed an original set up of the pieces by placing his knight on d7 with an idea to push c5. Vincent started to like his position after Black put his Queen on e8 as it felt for him it was easier to play it with White. He thought he could afford many waiting moves without worsening his position. In contrast, Daniil thought he should get better after White’s Bishop maneuvers g5-f4-g3 as in his opinion it was not the way to play for victory with White. ‘I was trying to find some ways to get a better position and I thought it must be winning, It became complicated and then I blundered a piece’, described the game Daniil. According to the heartless computer, the position became hopeless for Black after move 21 when Daniil didn’t remove his knight from d3 but went for a very complex line. White had always had an upper hand from that moment until the end. Vincent Keymer outplayed Daniil Dubov, leaving him on minus two after three days of play.

Pool C:

Sam Shankland and Alexandr Predke got the Carlsbad structure out of the Queen’s Gambit. Alexandr chose an interesting plan starting by advancing his pawns on the Queen’s side and then developing and trading his bishop on a6. White decided to regroup his pieces and managed to place his knight on the central square e5 but didn’t achieve much by this point. The first critical moment happened on move 23 when Black played carelessly Nc4 missing reply of White 24.a4 which left Black with weaknesses on the Queen’s side. Sam Shankland transferred the game into a rook ending with a pawn up but could not convert his advantage to the full point. It was the longest game of the day, which ended in a draw after 57 moves.

Grunfeld Defence was played in the game between Wesley So and  Maxime Vachier-Lagrave today. ”I have no idea what to play against Maxim’s Grunfeld after 7 years now”, confessed Welsey So. He didn’t expect the line with c5 and Bf5, which was previously played by Alexander Grischuk and prepared for a different option. Despite the tournament situation Maxim didn’t want to burn bridges and found the precise way to avoid any trouble. After numerous exchanges players ended up in an equal ending and signed the peace after 37 moves.

Pool D:

The game Yu Yangyi – Amin Tabatabaei saw an old good Makagonov-Bondarevsky system in which White traditionally did not achieve much. After the Chinese player made a thematic breakthrough in the center e3-e4 the players ended up in a drawish ending in which the opponents split the point on move 30.

Nikita Vitiugov tried to surprise Anish Giri with the Paulsen System of Sicilian and has achieved the goal, even though it’s hard to surprise the Dutch Grandmaster in any opening. The position with opposite castling appeared on the board and according to Anish, White had a slight edge until the moment he put his Bishop on f3. In such positions, the value of every move is very high and Black managed to put his pieces to active positions after a timely pawn sacrifice 21…e5! followed by 22…Be6. Black created some dangerous counterplay on the queenside and sacrificed his rook to finish the game by perpetual check on move 30.

Round 3 of the group stage will be played on March 25, at 3 PM local (CET) time.

The pairings for Round 3 are as follows:

Pool A:
Grigoriy Oparin (FIDE), 2674 – Andrey Esipenko (FIDE), 2723
Hikaru Nakamura, (USA), 2750 – Levon Aronian (USA), 2785

Pool B:
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), 2776 – Vincent Keymer (Germany), 2655
Leinier Dominguez (USA), 2756 – Daniil Dubov (FIDE), 2711

Pool C:
Wesley So (USA), 2778 – Sam Shankland (USA), 2704
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), 2761 – Alexandr Predke (FIDE), 2682

Pool D:
Yu Yangyi (China), 2713 – Anish Giri (Netherlands), 2771
Amin Tabatabaei (Iran), 2623 – Nikita Vitiugov (FIDE), 2726

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.