Sochi R10: 5 wins, 4 leaders

The 10th round of the 2nd Grand Prix Tournament in Sochi was definitely the most spectacular one, with five decisive games, and now we have a shared lead of Aronian, Gashimov, Radjabov and Wang Yue.

But you might wonder why there’s a photo up here of Kamsky and Jakovenko’s board, without Kamsky nor Jakovenko in it! Well, that’s because at 15:14 both players still had not entered the playing hall. Arriving late is getting kind of a habit more and more, especially for these two players, and without further commenting on it, I thought it was worth mentioning.

Before we knew it, in the 10th round three games were suddenly over within a timeframe of fifteen minutes, and none of them had ended in a draw! Navara had made an early mistake and was crushed right out of the opening by Radjabov.

Although it lasted 37 moves, the game Svidler-Karjakin ended soon afterwards, partly because 19 moves were theory and Svidler’s preparation, well, let’s say was not his best ever. Furthermore, he’s still suffering from his back and is having problems concentrating. It must be said that Karjakin played a strong game.

Gelfand needed one more move to defeat Ivanchuk, who got into trouble after his careless 15…Nbd7. The Ukrainian had to give up his queen and although the Israeli played sligthly risky later on, he finished it quite convincingly.

Wang Yue kept his first place by drawing with Black against Grischuk, and then Cheparinov dropped to a shared fifth place due to a weak performance against Aronian.

Gashimov won quite easily against Al-Modiahki and Jakovenko, well, after nine draws he decided to add one more.

With three more more rounds to go, we’ll witness a pretty exciting finish of the tournament! Here are the pairings of the last three rounds:

Photos © ChessVibes. Below you’ll find the games of the eighth round (with commentary by GM Sergey Shipov and myself), followed by videos by Robert Fontaine and Gérard Demuydt of Europe-Echecs.

Links:

• Official website
• Games in PGN