Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

[LawrenceCooper]

Assuming it's not a board malfunction 12 Rg1 by Svidler (presumably with the idea of g4-g5) made me smile.

[Chris Rice]

Assuming it's not a board malfunction 12 Rg1 by Svidler (presumably with the idea of g4-g5) made me smile.

Me too, I'm guessing White's king is safe enough in the middle, but just wow, what a move.

[LawrenceCooper]

Radjabov-Gelfand first to finish today.

[David Sedgwick]

Assuming it's not a board malfunction 12 Rg1 by Svidler (presumably with the idea of g4-g5) made me smile.

Me too, I'm guessing White's king is safe enough in the middle, but just wow, what a move.

Mamedyarov thought for a long time, then sacrificed the exchange.

[JustinHorton]

I only turned on a couple of moves later and didn't even notice anything until I did a bit of analysing and then started counting the pieces...

[LawrenceCooper]

Ding-Giri drawn but not without interest followed by Grischuk-Nakamura, Hammer-Adams & Salem-Inarkiev.

[Mick Norris]

Svidler - Shak now drawn too

[NickFaulks]

Svidler - Shak now drawn too

Not entirely clear to me why Svidler couldn't have played that on.

[LawrenceCooper]

Finally we have a winner, Harikrishna as black against Nepomniachtchi.

[JustinHorton]

Couple of really interesting endgames. Am following Tomashevsky v Vachier-Lagrave with Nalimov and I still have no idea why some moves draw and some do not.

[Mick Norris]

I'm guessing that Tomashevsky needs to keep his bishop on the c1 to h6 diagonal (move 76), but I haven't had much clue for the previous half an hour

[Roger de Coverly]

Am following Tomashevsky v Vachier-Lagrave with Nalimov and I still have no idea why some moves draw and some do not.

It's an ending where White has a dark square Bishop and a pawn on h4, whilst Black has a pawn on h5 and a Rook.

General reasoning would suggest that there are two ways for Black to win. You could sacrifice the Rook for the Bishop and h pawn, but that's a draw unless the King is too far away. You could alternatively deliver checkmate or use the threat of mate to win the h4 pawn. It also seems reasonable that the closer the King is to h1, the more likely it is to be mated.

[JustinHorton]

Well, a draw in the end. Lots of good chess today regardless of the scarcity of decisive games.

[Mick Norris]

Round 9
Bo. No. Name FED Rtg Pts. Result Pts. Name FED Rtg No.

1 12 GM Gelfand Boris ISR 2724 4½ 5 GM Ding Liren CHN 2773 4
2 5 GM Mamedyarov Shakhriyar AZE 2772 5 4½ GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime FRA 2795 1
3 2 GM Nakamura Hikaru USA 2786 4½ 4½ GM Svidler Peter RUS 2755 6
4 3 GM Giri Anish NED 2785 4½ 4½ GM Grischuk Alexander RUS 2750 8
5 9 GM Harikrishna P. IND 2750 4 4½ GM Radjabov Teimour AZE 2710 13
6 10 GM Adams Michael ENG 2747 3 4 GM Tomashevsky Evgeny RUS 2696 15
7 11 GM Inarkiev Ernesto RUS 2727 2½ 4 GM Hou Yifan CHN 2652 16
8 14 GM Vallejo Pons Francisco ESP 2710 3½ 3 GM Nepomniachtchi Ian RUS 2751 7
9 17 GM Salem A.R. Saleh UAE 2633 3 3½ GM Hammer Jon Ludvig NOR 2621 18

[Mick Norris]

Peter Doggers report

hakhriyar Mamedyarov vaguely remembered that castling wasn't good on move nine, but he played too fast. Svidler was actually commenting live on the game MVL vs Giri from the Paris Grand Chess Tour last year, so he knew how good it was for White.

Svidler basically got a free exchange. He said that during the game he was thinking: "This is no good. If I don't win this people will laugh. OK, you can start laughing now."