Gashimov Memorial 2016 - GOTD Round 7

Opening: D02: Queen's bishop game

Player(s): Eljanov, Hou

A very theoretical game led to a draw by repetition in the big clash at the top between Caruana and Giri today. The two top players went for an open Ruy Lopez, with no great chances for either to push and try to win. Safarli missed a great opportunity to draw his game vs. Mamedyarov, as IM voja shows in his analysis. After today's win, Mamedyarov shares 3rd-4th with Karjakin, turning a so far opaque performance into a decent result. Eljanov went with his pet line in the London system against Hou Yifan. It was an interesting game, with Hou fighting hard and getting into an apparently won position, with a bunch of extra pawns ready to become dangerous. But Eljanov had calculated the ending implications very efficiently, forcing the women's champion into a lost endgame, with her pawns not able anymore to sting and Pavel's "c" pawn free to storm the board undisturbed, to reach promotion in a few moves. Hou Yifan is actually playing good chess, and her score in the event doesn't reflect her level of play. Karjakin vs. Radjabov is a game that takes us some years back, when the two then-prodigies used to battle at the top level. Today's game was not exciting at all, with the two players trying nothing to make it interesting. Karjakin is probably with heart and mind at the match of his life, which will take place in a few months, and Radjabov, at least in this event, doesn't seem to be anymore the brilliant player he used to be. So, the standings at the top stay unchanged, with Caruana leading at 5.5/7 followed by Giri with 5.0/7. A full point behind Karjakin and Mamedyarov. tomorrow, in the penultimate round, Caruana plays Mamedyarov and Giri plays Hou Yifan. Round 8 starts at 7AM EDT -- 13:00 CEST.

Teacher's library (8) D02 Eljanov Hou recap