After round five of the FIDE Grand Swiss, held at the Villa Marina on 29 October, Arjun Erigaisi, Andrey Esipenko and Hikaru Nakamura now share the lead on 4/5, with 16 players half a point further back as Nakamura defeated Alexey Sarana, Erigaisi beat Rinat Jumabayev whilst the other 12 top boards were all drawn. In the FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss there is now a sole leader after Bibisara Assaubayeva overcame former women’s world champion Tan Zhongyi to reach 4½/5. On 4/5 are Anna Muzychuk, Rameshbabu Vaishali and Aleksandra Goryachkina. Six rounds remain.
Andrey Esipenko and Fabiano Caruana played a cagey game to split the point on the top board.
Overnight leader Andrey Esipenko had the white pieces against Fabiano Caruana and opened with an Exchange Queen’s Gambit Declined. Caruana imbalanced the position slightly by advancing g7-g5 in front of his castled king and exchanging dark-squared bishops on g3, but the position soon subsided into steady equality, with a symmetrical pawn configuration, and eventually ended in perpetual check.
A misplaced clock connection, visible here, impeded Nakamura’s access to the lever on his side of the clock…
Chief arbiter Alex Holowczak to the rescue. The connection lead was relocated and Nakamura and Sarana could continue in peace.
Hikaru Nakamura opened with a Catalan against the Serbian GM and 2023 European Champion Alexey Sarana. The opening was a little eccentric, but not entirely unprecedented, as Nakamura, playing White, moving his dark-squared bishop four times between moves 5 and 15 (to d2, c3, back to d2 and to f4). It may have been an attempt at provocation and, if so, may have been successful as Black advanced in the centre and undermined the defence of his c5-pawn. Later Sarana surrendered a second pawn, though White’s position remained a little problematic and it wasn’t so obvious that Black was lost. Even when it came down to a knight ending in which White had four pawns to Black’s two, there were some difficulties to resolve. But Nakamura deftly navigated his way to success and won on move 70.
Alireza Firouzja (White) and Hans Niemann commence their entertaining game.
The post-mortem to the Firouzja-Niemann game was conducted on camera and can be watched online
The game between Alireza Firouzja and Hans Niemann provided a good deal of entertainment, not least to the commentators, ending in a draw on move 53. The opening was a King’s Indian Attack, at least until Firouzja played 7 d3-d4 having previously played the thematic 5 d2-d3. Things started getting interesting when Niemann played 16…Nxf2, going into the middlegame with rook and two pawns for bishop and knight. A very loose position arose and White got his bishop temporarily trapped behind enemy lines, which Niemann might have exploited definitively had he doubled his rooks on the e-file on move 27. Another more obscure winning opportunity went begging on move 33. Thereafter, the exchange for a pawn up but with one pawn left, Niemann’s chances dwindled to nothing though he kept trying for another ten moves. The players later discussed the game on camera for the watching audience. A bonus came when they conducted an impromptu post-mortem on their game from a youth tournament from 2013. Witnessing their affable banter at close quarters was fascinating, with a sense that we were being given a foretaste of a rivalry that might be played out at the highest level one day.
Arjun Erigaisi won a long game against Rinat Jumabayev to join Esipenko and Nakamura on 4/5
Arjun Erigaisi made it an overnight triumvirate of leaders late on when he overcame Rinat Jumabayev in a 68-move endgame resulting from a Berlin Ruy Lopez opening. It came down to rook, knight and pawn for Erigaisi (White) versus rook and two pawns, with each side promoting to a queen at the same time. However, it transpired that Black should have interposed a rook check before promoting to a queen, after which he might have been within sight of a draw, but the immediate promotion led to a loss in a few more accurate moves from the Indian.
Radoslaw Wojtaszek is rapidly becoming the Professor of the Dark Arts at this tournament. His latest victim was the 2023 world junior champion Marc’Andria Maurizzi who fell into a snare resembling a Venus Flytrap (with overtones of Bobby Fischer’s legendary bishop takes rook pawn blunder in the first match game against Spassky in 1972).
The 14-year-old US GM Abhimanyu Mishra made an interesting queen for rook and minor piece sacrifice against Alexander Donchenko which paid off handsomely.
The English representatives Nikita Vitiugov and Shreyas Royal now have scores of 3/5 and 2/5 respectively, having drawn their games against Ivan Cheparinov and Murali Karthikeyan (whom we have to remember beat Magnus Carlsen at the recent Qatar Masters). Royal’s TPR of 2590 x 5 looks very healthy.
Nikita Vitiugov is unbeaten on +1
Ivan Cheparinov playing White against Nikita Vitiugov
The Isle of Man representatives Dietmar Kolbus and Li Wu both lost (to Eduardo Iturrizaga and Baskaran Adhiban). Both are on ½/6 and will meet each other in round six.
Dietmar Kolbus (Black) against Eduardo Iturrizaga. Tomorrow he has a show-down with Manx colleague Li Wu
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Women’s Grand Swiss: Round 5 Report
The irresistible force overcame the immovable object: Bibisara Assaubayeva defeated Tan Zhongyi to wrest the lead
Bibisara Assaubayeva, the 19-year-old IM from Kazakhstan, assumed the lead in round five by defeating former women’s world champion Tan Zhongyi with Black. The Chinese GM seemed comfortably placed against her opponent’s King’s Indian Defence opening but her play in the early middlegame looked suspect, banking on the strength of her kingside play but allowing Black to establish strong points on dark squares at d4 and f4. Soon the row of white pawns in the centre typical of the King’s Indian had been painted an unfamiliar shade of black as the d5-pawn disappeared and Black occupied the middle of the board. Meanwhile White’s play along the g-file came to nothing. White was pushed back further and found herself corralled into a cramped corner of the queenside and the axe soon fell. Given how hard Tan Zhongyi is to beat, as already demonstrated in this tournament, this was a significant achievement for Bibisara Assaubayeva.
A handshake starts the game between R Vaishali and Anna Muzychuk: it also ended it, in a draw
Board two between Rameshbabu Vaishali and Anna Muzychuk was a cagey, starting with the Exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez. The game lasted 37 moves but neither player looked like establishing an advantage at any point.
Aleksandra Goryachkina recorded her third successive win in defeating Meruert Kamalidenova of Kazakhstan. The top seed had White and played the unusual Prins variation against the Sicilian, with overtones of the Maroczy Bind after she had played 9 c4. Black started coming adrift around move 18 and her strange 20…Bd2 move was answered by 21 c5, destabilising her position and leaving her king open to threats from White’s two bishops. Eventually the hapless black bishop on d2 was encircled and lost, and that was pretty well the end.
Marsel Efroimski pressurised Teodora Injac into error in a complicated struggle.
The game between Teodora Injac and Marsel Efroimski got very complicated in time trouble. It was another example of king safety being of paramount importance.
