2009 FIDE Grand Prix - Jermuk, Armenia
August 8th - August 24th

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KHollister,

Player Standings



Official Site

You can download the games here.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KHollister,

You can read all about the Grand Prix here.


1st Grand Prix tournament in Baku, Azerbaijan
2nd Grand Prix tournament in Sochi, Russia
3rd Grand Prix tournament in Elista, Russia
4th Grand Prix tournament in Nalchik, Russia


Overall Grand Prix standings:



Several changes were made to the Grand Prix and the whole World Championship cycle. Read more about it here.

Leko and Ivanchuk are leading after the first section with 3.5/5. Half a point behind they are followed by Kasimdzhanov, Aronian and Gelfand. At the end we find Inarkiev who got a promising (if not winning) position in most of his games, but somehow managed to spoil them all.


By the way; eventhough Karjakin is now Russian citizen, he still reperesents Ukraine which can be clearly seen in this picture from round 4. There are two reasons for this:

He didn't seem to request to change the federation yet (see here) - the list is up to date with the last request being from August 3rd)

even if he did request it, he could play under Russian flag in FIDE events only after 10 months have passed.

Interesting action and many decisive games today!

Cheparinov tested Alekseev if he knows how to mate with bishop and a knight - Alekseev passed


There seemed to be some things going on at the end of Ivanchuk vs. Kamsky. If the last transmited move 114...Bxd4 was really played then Kamsky is clearly winning. After 114...Bxd4 several minutes passed (players didn't have that many on the clocks) before the game was declared drawn.

This is purely my speculation, but here is what it might have happened. They were moving the pieces back and forth without any captures or pawn moves since move 64.Rxg4, hence they were approaching the point where a 50 move draw could be claimed. Ivanchuk was probably sure that after his 114th move he can claim a draw (or better said he wrote down the move and called the arbiter claiming that his move will produce 50 moves without any captures or pawn moves). Of course he didn't have to put his rook there where it could be captured, but he was sure that it is a draw and wanted to show Kamsky that he is unhappy that he unnecesarrilly "tortured" him for the last 50 moves. However since the last capture (64.Rxg4) black only made 49 moves! So his 50th move (114...Bxd4) is a capture and thus resets the move counter to zero!!!


The FIDE rules are clear about that:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2
e.
The game may be drawn if each player has made at least the last 50 consecutive moves without the movement of any pawn and without any capture. (See Article 9.3)



9.3
The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if:

a.
he writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, which shall result in thelast50 moves having been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or

b.
the last 50 consecutive moves have been made by each playerwithout the movement of any pawn and without any capture.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Kamsky probably did protest about the draw claim (and he is right) - why else would 114...Bxd4 appear on the board. And then the discussion started. Only those in Jermuk know what happened, but the game was declared drawn after several minutes. Either the arbiter made a mistake or Kamsky agreed to a draw anyway, since the game should realistically end in a draw without Ivanchuk's unnecessary 114.Rd4.


Like said, this is pure speculation. Maybe it was just a relay error

Heh, it turns out I can't count properly

113...Qh7 was Kamsky's 50th move. So everything is right with the move count.

But I still have the feeling something weird happened at the end. Maybe Ivanchuk executed 114.Rd4 and then claimed the draw, which is not according to the rules. Correct way of claiming the draw is to write your next move on the scoresheet and then call the arbiter. Perhaps this is what happened. It sure was strange that 114...Bxd4 was transmited and only after several minutes the game was declared drawn, and 114...Bxd4 retracted.

The slugfest in Jermuk continues. 6 decisive games today!!! This means that 45% of all games played were decisive. I can't remember the last high level tournament with such a low draw rate.



P.S.: Nothing unusual seems to have happened yesterday. Everything must have been only a relay error and my vivid imagination

Ivanchuk, Leko and Kasimdzhanov lead the pack into the 2nd rest day. The winner will probably come from this group, since they have a 1 point lead ahead of the next group: Eljanov, Aronian, Karjakin and Alekseev.


If we take a look what this results mean for the overall GP standings, then we can see that Jakovenko and Akopian can bury their hopes to reach first two places. Leko will be good in the race, and Aronian will already be qualified (99.99%). Ivanchuk, who seemed to be out of the race, can get back into the fight for 2nd place. But for that he would need a clear (non-shared) win in this tournament as well as in the last GP tournament.

Ivanchuk wins the Grand Prix tournament in Jermuk. Aronian and Gelfand share 2nd place.

This means following for the overall Grand Prix standings:


Levon Aronian already secured himself the 1st place and has thus qualified for the 2010 Candidates. Fight for one remaining spot will be very interesting. There are several contenders: Radjabov, Wang, Gashimov, Leko, Jakovenko, Ivanchuk and even Gelfand. Mamedyarov and Alekseev only have theoretical chances, as well as Grischuk who theoretically can still qualify (but only theoretically - everything has to align perfectly for him).

When assesing each players chances you have to take into the account that the worst result is not counted. So while it may look as if Radjabov has a big lead in comparison to Ivanchuk, it is not THAT big. For example, if Radjabov (worst result: 60 points) finishes clear 3rd (130 points) then his overall score improves by 70 points. If Ivanchuk (worst result: 20 points) finishes clear 3rd he improves his overall score by 110 points. If Leko (worst score: 80 points) finishes 3rd he improves his overall score by only 50 points! It's easier to improve a really bad score, than a higher one.

Last Grand Prix tournament in December (wherever it may be) should be interesting. And there will be a lot of calculating needed

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ebutaljib,