Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Tashkent Grand Prix: Three way tie

At the start of the final round, there were two leaders  ,Morozevich and Mamedyarov with 6 points. No less than five players were in the next group and had the chance to catch up. They were Caruana, Karjakin, Wang Hao ,Kasimdzhanov and Ponomario.

After four hours of play, Rustam Kasimdzhanov had drawn with Boris Gelfand. Morozevich drew with Svidler thus ensuring a minimum first place tie as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov seemed to self destruct against Wang Hao. Morozevich games are always great for spectating. Later Svidler commented "Games vs Alexander Morozevich tend to get watchable at some point, as a rule"

This left Caruana, Karjakin and Ponomariov with chances of catching Morozevich and Wang Hao with a win. Ponomariov lost two pawns against Karjakin but the former defended tenaciously and posed numerous difficulties over the board. However Karjakin overcame them all and so it was a matter of time before Karjakin brought home the full point.

In the battle of the tail-enders, Dominguez finally scored his first win over Gata Kamsky and thus relegated the latter to the cellar. Former World Championship challenger, Gelfand had a terrible tournament finishing tenth with two losses and no wins.

0 comments:

Post a Comment