Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was the only winner of the day at the FIDE Grand Prix in Hamburg.
The French grandmaster chose his beloved Grünfeld Defence with Black
against Veselin Topalov, who
opted for a sideline which transposes the position into a
Benoni-like-structure. In a highly complex middlegame, the Bulgarian
grandmaster used one of his trademark exchange sacrifices to complicate matters
even more.
In time trouble, both players attacked the enemy king and risked everything.
Topalov committed the final mistake in move 36. He could have sacrificed a piece and hide his king in the corner, but this was extremely difficult to spot.
Instead, he allowed his opponent to win the crucial b-pawn. In the end,
Vachier-Lagrave found a lovely combination to force a queen exchange and to
promote his passed pawn.
Yu Yangyi misses a possible win
although he showed once more his fantastic preparation.
In a main line of the Petrov’s Defence, which the Chinese grandmaster often uses himself, he presented an interesting novelty in move twelve, which immediately put pressure on his opponent.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda thought about one hour for the following six moves but landed in an inferior position.
Yu Yangyi played a perfect game until move 27. In a heavy piece endgame, he had a strong passed pawn on e6 and could dominate the situation with a quiet queen move.
Instead, he lost two tempi with unnecessary rook moves. Duda was able to activate his queen and force the draw with a perpetual. “When I played my rook to e5 I completely missed that he can activate his queen”, Yu Yangyi mentioned after the game.
Alexander Grischuk and David Navara followed a main line in the Catalan Opening that the Russian grandmaster used to beat Leinier Dominguez Perez in the third round of the Worldcup in Khanty Mansiysk.
After exchanging three minor pieces, Grischuk relied on his slight space advantage and better minor piece. However, Navara’s position remained solid. Grischuk spent a lot of time, but he couldn’t find a way to put Black under serious pressure. Navara countered with a well-timed centre push, and the position soon petered out into an equal queen endgame.
In a battle of generations, the Russians Daniil Dubov and Peter Svidler discussed an important theoretical line of the Grünfeld Defence. White started to build up a strong centre, and Svidler hurried to attack it with typical counters.
However, he had to sacrifice a pawn.
Afterwards, both players agreed that objectively White should hold an
advantage. Over the board, Dubov wasn´t able to demonstrate this statement to
be the case. With his time running down, Dubov decided to avoid unnecessary
risks and offered a draw on move 23.
Round 2, game 1 results:
Veselin Topalov – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 0-1
Alexander Grischuk – David Navara 1/2-1/2
Daniil Dubov – Peter Svidler 1/2-1/2
Yu Yangyi – Jan-Krzysztof Duda 1/2-1/2
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