Aronian, Radjabov Join Leaders At Palma GP
Levon Aronian and Teimour Radjabov won their games in round two of the FIDE Grand Prix in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The two are tied for first place with Anish Giri and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
Ernesto Inarkiev was one of the winners yesterday, but he lost to Aronian and dropped back to 50 percent. After two rounds, nobody is left with a 100 percent score, and nobody started with two losses.
Palma de Mallorca Grand Prix | Round 2 Results
| Bo. | No. | Fed | Title | Name | Rtg | Pt. | Result | Pt. | Fed | Title | Name | Rtg | No. |
| 1 | 6 | GM | Giri | 2762 | 1 | ½ - ½ | 1 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave | 2796 | 2 | ||
| 2 | 1 | GM | Aronian | 2801 | ½ | 1 - 0 | 1 | GM | Inarkiev | 2683 | 16 | ||
| 3 | 3 | GM | Nakamura | 2780 | ½ | ½ - ½ | ½ | GM | Jakovenko | 2721 | 10 | ||
| 4 | 17 | GM | Riazantsev | 2651 | ½ | ½ - ½ | ½ | GM | Ding Liren | 2774 | 4 | ||
| 5 | 5 | GM | Svidler | 2763 | ½ | ½ - ½ | ½ | GM | Eljanov | 2707 | 12 | ||
| 6 | 13 | GM | Vallejo | 2705 | ½ | 0 - 1 | ½ | GM | Radjabov | 2741 | 8 | ||
| 7 | 9 | GM | Harikrishna | 2738 | ½ | ½ - ½ | ½ | GM | Tomashevsky | 2702 | 14 | ||
| 8 | 7 | GM | Li Chao | 2741 | 0 | ½ - ½ | ½ | GM | Hammer | 2629 | 18 | ||
| 9 | 11 | GM | Gelfand | 2719 | 0 | ½ - ½ | 0 | GM | Rapport | 2692 | 15 |
Candidates Update: What If This Were The Final Round?
Radjabov and Vachier-Lagrave are trying to qualify for the 2018 Candidates' Tournament. For this, they need to finish among the top two in the overall Grand Prix standings.
Each round we update the situation with the question: What if the tournament ended here?
Today, Radjabov (who needs 96 points) and MVL (who needs 126 points) would get points for a tie for first place with four players: 170+140+110+90=510 / 4 = 127.5 each. That would be enough for both to surpass Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Alexander Grischuk.
After "spoiling" a White game yesterday (drawing in 12 moves with Alexander Riazantsev!) Teimour Radjabov got the most out of his first black game. Returning to his old love, the King's Indian, the Azerbaijani got to play the super-thematic e5-e4 pawn sacrifice to bring his fianchetto bishop to life.
KID connaisseurs will immediately sing in harmony Kotov-Gligoric! Kotov-Gligoric! and our annotator, who is a trainer and an author of a book on this opening, knows his classics too obviously.
The World Cup winner Levon Aronian joined the leaders as well. He won a highly theoretical battle vs. Ernsto Inarkiev in a sharp line of the 5.Bf4 Queen's Gambit Declined that was seen at this year's Isle of Man tournament. You might remember Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura drawing very quickly in the last round there—that's the variation we're talking about.
These adventures all started with a game between Viktor Kortchnoi and Anatoly Karpov in their 1978 world championship match in Baguio. At the time, Korchnoi found his way through the complications and won the game. It took another 30 years before someone else tried it as Black!
Since the game Tarjan-Zumsande from 2015, also played in Isle of Man, the line was playable again. This might still be the case after Aronian's novelty on move 16, but today Inarkiev failed to hold. His piece sacrifice on move 22 was very intersting, but not correct. A splendid game by Aronian.
Aronian vs Inarkiev. | Photo: FIDE.
Speaking of theoretical battles, what about Anish Giri vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave? They continued a discussion that took place during the 2016 Norway Chess tournament, when the Dutchman had his opponent on the ropes in the opening but let him get away and then lost.
To some extent it went a bit similar today, with Giri getting the upper hand after an interesting exchange sacrifice. It looks like White was still better on move 26.
Paula Guinard, the tourism manager of Palma de Mallorca, making the first move for Giri. | Photo: FIDE.
Palma de Mallorca Grand Prix | Standings After Round 2
| Rk. | SNo | Fed | Title | Name | Rtg | Pts. |
| 1 | 1 | GM | Aronian Levon | 2801 | 1,5 | |
| 2 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | 2796 | 1,5 | ||
| 6 | GM | Giri Anish | 2762 | 1,5 | ||
| 8 | GM | Radjabov Teimour | 2741 | 1,5 | ||
| 5 | 3 | GM | Nakamura Hikaru | 2780 | 1 | |
| 4 | GM | Ding Liren | 2774 | 1 | ||
| 5 | GM | Svidler Peter | 2763 | 1 | ||
| 9 | GM | Harikrishna P. | 2738 | 1 | ||
| 10 | GM | Jakovenko Dmitry | 2721 | 1 | ||
| 12 | GM | Eljanov Pavel | 2707 | 1 | ||
| 14 | GM | Tomashevsky Evgeny | 2702 | 1 | ||
| 16 | GM | Inarkiev Ernesto | 2683 | 1 | ||
| 17 | GM | Riazantsev Alexander | 2651 | 1 | ||
| 18 | GM | Hammer Jon Ludvig | 2629 | 1 | ||
| 15 | 7 | GM | Li Chao B | 2741 | 0,5 | |
| 11 | GM | Gelfand Boris | 2719 | 0,5 | ||
| 13 | GM | Vallejo Pons Francisco | 2705 | 0,5 | ||
| 15 | GM | Rapport Richard | 2692 | 0,5 |
The Palma de Mallorca Grand Prix takes place November 16-25 (with a rest day on Nov. 21) in the Iberostar Cristina hotel in Palma de Mallorca. It is a nine-round Swiss with 18 players. The prize fund is €130,000 / $152,892. The time control is 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move one.
Correction: An earlier version of this report wrongly stated that the game Giri-MVL from Norway Chess 2016 ended in a draw.
Previous report:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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