Vassily Ivanchuk leads the Kings Tournament in Bucharest, Romania after the first round. The 43-year-old Ukrainian grandmaster defeated Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu with White in a Nimzo-Indian. Veselin Topalov came very close to beating Fabiano Caruana in an Anti-Grünfeld, but the Bulgarian had to settle for a draw. This year the Kings Tournament is a double round robin with just four players.

Ivanchuk concentrating before his game against Nisipeanu | Photos by Macauley Peterson & provided by the organizers, more here

Originally the Kings Tournament was supposed to take place 23 June - 4 July 2012 in Medias, Romania. However, just nine days before the start it was announced that the tournament had to be postponed: the financial crisis combined with local politics forced the organizers to cancel the Grand Slam event for the moment. Back then the organizers expressed their hopes to hold the event later in the year, and they managed.

All the turmoil led to a smaller playing field: the 6th edition's double round robin does not have six, but four players. Vassily Ivanchuk and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu are the two players who were in the original line-up, which also included Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand, Teimour Radjabov and Sergey Karjakin. For different reasons these players couldn't make it to Romania this month, but Fabiano Caruana and Veselin Topalov accepted an invitation instead.

Another novelty is the location. The tournament moved from the small towns of Bazna and Medias (where sponsor Romgaz has a resort and its headquarters) to Romania's capital. The venue is the Amphitheatre Hall of the National Institute of Statistics in downtown Bucharest.

The first three rounds are played on November 7th, 8th and 9th and then the last three rounds on November 11th, 12th and 13th. The rate of play is the classical 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes to finish the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move 61. There's also the rule that direct draw offers are not allowed before move 30.

The field of players doesn't really have a clear favorite, but it's obvious that Nisipeanu has a tough week ahead of him. In the first round he never really got into the game against Ivanchuk, who said:

After the opening I was clearly better. He did not have enough compensation for the two bishops and his knights were not situated very well.

Nisipeanu:

Probably I messed up in the opening big time. I have to check my analysis of course. It's common nowadays that you forget and you're not able to reproduce it anymore.

PGN string

Ivanchuk beats Nisipeanu, grabs the lead in round 1

Like Ivanchuk, Topalov managed to get a serious advantage out of the opening, which is not easy when you're playing Caruana. The Italian invested many hours in his Grünfeld, but the Anti-Grünfeld position he got after White's 13.Nh3!? was rather unpleasant. Things got worse, and Caruana said himself:

White was pretty much just winning. I was down a pawn for nothing. [Then] I tried to create some mess. 

ECU President Silvio Danailov making the first move for Topalov, watched by FIDE's Nigel Freeman

Topalov had a big advantage, but missed something when he went for 28.Rg6!?. There were many possibilities in that position, especially playing a knight or a rook to d3 came into consideration. Soon after, the Bulgarian went for a long and forced line, hoping to checkmate his opponent's king in the middle of the board. But there was no mate.

PGN string

Topalov almost beat Caruana

Videos produced by Macauley Peterson

Kings Tournament 2012 | Pairings & results

Kings Tournament 2012 | Round 1 standings