Richard Rapport described it as “kind of a must-win game” as he defeated Vidit to end the Indian star’s perfect start to the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix and catch him on 2/3. Pool C also saw the only other decisive action of Round 3 as Vladimir Fedoseev defeated Alexei Shirov to move to 1.5/3. Elsewhere there were relatively quiet draws, though Anish Giri played a stylish queen sacrifice to tie his game against Harikrishna. That result left him as the only player with the sole lead in any of the pools.
You can replay all the games from the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix using the selector below.
And here’s the day’s live commentary from Peter Svidler and Jan Gustafsson.
The 2022 FIDE Grand Prix group stages had so far been notable for the high number of decisive games as players competed for the top spot in each group. In Berlin and Belgrade there had never been less than three decisive games in a round, but in Round 3 there were just two.
Let’s take a look at how it went.
Alexander Grischuk started with two losses in Belgrade, but finally picked up a draw in Round 3. French Grandmaster Etienne Bacrot played the Petroff, a very rare opening in his games. Grischuk commented:
It was a surprise. It’s called Petroff in English, but in Russian it’s called the Russian Defence, so I thought maybe I started to play the French and Etienne started to play the Russian!
Both players agreed the line chosen was dangerous for Black, but Etienne knew exactly what he was doing and it soon fizzled out into a draw. Alexander won the post game interviews, first blanking some questions by Milan Dinic.
Milan: Are you feeling like you’re getting into your element slowly?
Grischuk: No.
Then shortly afterwards:
What about you, Alexander. Is your appetite for adventure growing, on the chessboard, I mean?
No.
Then when he talked to Dina Belenkaya he gave a surprising account of the opening the day before, when he got a very good position against Sam Shankland but then blundered to defeat.
I think actually yesterday the whole of Shankland’s preparation was just hoping I’d play the King’s Indian, and once I didn’t he had no clue what to do in the opening and he got clearly worse with White. The best part of playing the King’s Indian is that sometimes you can play something else and get your opponents by surprise!
Andreikin-Shankland, meanwhile, saw Sam Shankland demonstrate a new way to draw with the Grünfeld Defence.
Mikhail Antipov, who seemed to have been paying attention, was playing another Sam in the Spring Chess Classic in Saint Louis.
Shankland explained that in principle the line is dangerous for Black, since if White misplays it he probably just gets a slightly unpleasant endgame, while “the worst thing that happens to Black is the queen comes to h6 and you get mated!” That was avoided, however, with Andreikin explaining that he didn’t have “a fighting mood” after a good start in Belgrade.
Anish Giri lost his 100% record in Belgrade, but a draw with the black pieces against Harikrishna means he’s now the only player leading a pool. He sealed the draw with a not strictly necessary flourish!
23…Qxf3!! gets two exclamation marks for shock value, though after 24.gxf3 Nxd4 25.Qe4 Nxf3+ 26.Kh1 Nxe1 27.Qxe6+ Rf7 28.Rxe1 the position was very close to equal.
Peter Svidler almost fell off his chair!
In the other game in the pool, Nikita Vitiugov had questions about the way he played.
It’s not easy to get in trouble with White in this endgame, but I managed to do it. I can’t explain what I was doing at the board, because I feel like I started to play only when I realised that i was about to totally lose the control.
Amin Tabatabaei noted his opponent’s 25.f4!?
He explained that Black’s position looks “very beautiful”, but there was nothing he could do to make more progress.
Richard Rapport went into his game trailing leader Vidit by a full point, and, since he had the white pieces, he considered it, “kind of a must-win game”.
Winning on demand against a player of Vidit’s calibre is seldom easy, but Richard made it look that way. It was only with 8…a6 instead of 8…c6 that Vidit varied from a Nimzo-Indian he lost to Levon Aronian in the recent Berlin Grand Prix, but soon Richard took over and with 21.e4! it was clear he'd won the strategic battle.
Black needed extreme precision to try and hold, but instead Rapport built up a bigger and bigger advantage until the finishing touches were straightforward.
32.h3 Nh6 33.Nxh6+ gxh6 34.Nf6+ and White was soon a pawn and an exchange up with complete control of the position. There was no way back for Vidit.
That meant that Rapport caught Vidit on 2/3, while Vladimir Fedoseev moved to 1.5/3 after defeating an out-of-sorts Alexei Shirov.
Both queens found themselves behind enemy lines before the kingside had been developed…
…but while the white queen tormented the black position, Alexei’s queen on d4 would only prove vulnerable. Black managed to castle, but in the final position there was no good defence to the threat of capturing on f7 and giving checkmate.
It’s six games and no wins so far in Pool D, though as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov mentioned it’s not for the want of trying. In Round 3 the games were surprisingly similar with Mamedyarov vs. Alexandr Predke, and Yu Yangyi vs. MVL, both coming down to a drawish rook endgame where White had three pawns against two.
That leaves the standings as follows after Round 3, at the midway point of the qualifiers.
There’s no rest day until after Round 4, so the players begin to play opponents they’ve already faced once. Games to look out for in Friday’s Round 4 include Andreikin-Grischuk, Fedoseev-Rapport and Mamedyarov-Yu Yangyi.
Watch Peter Svidler, who will be joined by Alejandro Ramirez, commentate on the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix action from 09:00 ET | 15:00 CET | 19:30 IST.
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