Round 8: Kramnik is on fire, Giri stumbles again

Tournament web-site: http://www.qatarmastersopen.com/ 

The absence of rest days seems to be not a problem for 39 years old Vladimir Kramnik as he keeps crushing his opponents and now has 6 consecutive victories. In the eighth round, playing with Black, former world champion outplayed Salem A.R. Saleh. UAE's #1 got a comfortable position from the opening, but couldn't propose any questions to his titled opponent, while Russian wasn't interested in equalizing and started to search for opportunities which soon appeared. Salem played a good game, but just not good enough against Kramnik.



Anish Giri had White against a "bombardier" of the Chinese Olympic team Yu Yangyi, who scored 9,5 out of 11 in Tromso, leading his team to a Gold medal. Yangyi is showing outstanding result here in Qatar as he managed to defeat top seed Dutch player with black pieces. The game lasted for 91 moves, and Yu proved to be the the next leader of chess movement in China.



In the round 9 Yangyi will play with white pieces against Kramnik. Vladimir Akopian, who outplayed Nils Grandelius, will face Anish Giri on table two.



GM Bela Khotenashvili is a clear leader among women participants after her second consecutive win in the open - Chinese Wen Yang. With 5 points out of 8 Georgian even has a chance to get a prize in open section. In the last round Bela will play against Alexander Rakhmanov of Russia.



Current top standings:

1. Kramnik Vladimir - 7; 2. Yu Yangyi - 6.5; 3-5. Giri Anish, Akopian Vladimir, Efimenko Zahar - 6 out of 7.

Full standings

Pairings

Report by Maria Emelianova, photographs by Dmitry Rukhletskiy and Maria Emelianova.

For more pictures please visit the Gallery.

Kramnik breaks Giri's winning record to join the lead, Salem and Yangyi half a point behind.


ANISH GIRI AND VLADIMIR KRAMNIK BEFORE THE DECISIVE GAME

Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik outplayed top seeded Anish Giri in the seventh round of the Qatar Masters Open 2014 to join him as a leader.
The Russian did not have the best start in the tournament but managed to secure his fifth consecutive victory and now has six points from seven rounds, breaking Giri's series of victories.
Kramnik will play Black against Salem A. R. Saleh from UAE, who has outplayed Azerbaijani Rauf Mamedov in an extremely sharp game. Giri will take on Yu Yangi, who defeated Aleksander Lenderman and joined to share third with Salem half a point behind.


VLADIMIR KRAMNIK IS NOW DEFINITELY FEELING MUCH BETTER THAN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TOURNAMENT

"Everybody will try to beat me to take a first place, but I still can do a Caruana", - laughed Vladimir during the live commentary show with GMs Simon Williams and Daniel King.
In the other games of the day Evgeny Tomashevsky and Yuriy Kryvoruchko drew against Mikhailo Oleksienko and Samuel Shankland respectively.


SAM SHANKLAND MANAGED TO HOLD A TOUGH GAME WITH EXCHANGE DOWN AGAINST UKRAINIAN KRYVORUCHKO

In the women's section of participants Elina Danielian maintained the lead by making a draw against Indian Gopal G N, while Bela Khotenashvili outplayed another strong Indian Sandipan Chanda with black pieces! Both are now ahead of the other female players with 4 points out of 7.


BELA KHOTENASHVILI IS NOT AFRAID OF ANY 2600+ GRANDMASTER, EVEN PLAYING WITH BLACK!

In the eighth round Anish Giri and Vladimir Kramnik will try to defend their lead playing against Yu Yangyi and Salem A. R. Saleh respectively. Full pairings available here.

Current top-standings:
1-2. Giri Anish (NED), Kramnik Vladimir (RUS) - 6; 3-4. Salem A.R. Saleh (UAE). Yu Yangyi (CHN) - 5.5; 5-18. Grandelius Nils (SWE), Oleksienko Mikhailo, Volokitin Andrei, Kryvoruchko Yuriy, Efimenko Zahar (all - Ukraine), Vachier-Lagrave Maxime, Cornette Matthieu (both France), Tomashevsky Evgeny (RUS), Bu Xiangzhi (CHN), Ivanisevic Ivan, Perunovic Milos (SRB), Shankland Samuel (USA), Akopian Vladimir (ARM), Adhiban B. (IND) - 5 points out of 7.


For the full pairings please visit this page.

Report by Maria Emelianova, photographs by Dmitry Rukhletskiy and Maria Emelianova.

Please visit the Photo Gallery for more pictures of the round.  

Anish Giri leads with a perfect 6 out of 6 in Qatar Masters Open 2014 in Doha

Tournament website: http://www.qatarmastersopen.com/ 


Pictured by Maria Emelianova

The field is warming up here, nowadays in a quite chilly Doha. The games being played till two kings on board left, a lot of exchange and even queen sacrifices!

Nils Grandelius, ranked 70th, is having the best tournament of his chess career in Doha. Even after his first loss in 6th round, Nils has rating performance of 2835! He was defeating very well against Anish Giri, but Dutch grandmaster kept pushing, trying to use any chance, and finally Swedish blundered in an endgame under time trouble, allowing Giri to maintain perfect score lead.


Pictured by Dmitry Rukhletskiy

Top seed Giri will play Black against former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who managed to win the fourth game in a row while started the open with two draws against not so strong opponents. However, even one point behind the leader Vladimir may keep the question open: Who will get the $25.000 prize in Doha?

Meanwhile in the group of followers everything is even less unclear. There are 12 players from 8 countries with 4.5 out of 6, including a good surprise for Middle East chess: GM Salem A R Saleh from UAE, ranked 62nd, playing very sharp and creative, owns 3 wins and 3 draws so far, and shows rating performance 2815! Great gift for United Arab Emirates on a National Day of the country!

There is no clear leader among women participating in the tournament. In 6th round GM Bela Khotenashvili had a clear advantage against Russian GM Daniil Dubov, but Georgian miscalculated and lost a piece in time trouble. Grandmasters Antoaneta Stefanova and Natalia Zhukova won their games against members of the Polish Olympic team GMs Mateusz Bartel and Bartosz Socko respectively, while GM Elina Danielian outplayed Indian GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar. Antoaneta, Elina and Natalia have 3.5 points out of 6. First prize for women is $5000, tie-break is rating performance.


Pictured by Dmitry Rukhletskiy

Current standings:
1. Giri Anish (NED)- 6; 2. Kramnik Vladimir (RUS) - 5; 3-14. Grandelius Nils (SWE), Salem A R Saleh (UAE), Oleksienko Mikhailo, Kryvoruchko Yuriy, Efimenko Zahar (all – Ukraine), Tomashevskiy Evgeny (RUS), Ivanisevic Ivan, Perunovic Milos (both – Serbia), Yu Yangyi (CHN) Shankland Samuel, Lenderman Aleksandr (both – USA) and Mamedov Rauf (AZE) - 4.5 points out of 6.

Useful links:
Full rankings
Pairings
Photo gallery of 6th round
Live video broadcast

Report by Maria Emelianova
Photos by Dmitry Rukhletskiy and Maria Emelianova