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Last year Komodo won the world championship title on two occasions and can call itself â€œ2019 World Computer Chess Championâ€ and â€œ2019 World Chess Software Championâ€. And the current Komodo 14 has been clearly improved over its predecessor!

2/23/2015 – A day of unusual games! Jobava scored his third win in this tournament, going into a 50% score after a relatively bad start. His win against Svidler was a great example of neutralizing initiative. Tomashevsky won after 91 moves in a game where he had three pieces against a a rook and pawn. He took all of his opponent's pawns and then slowly checkmated him. Now leads by a point!

The third stage of the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix is taking place in Tbilisi, Georgia. The tournament will run from February 14th to February 28, 2014. Some of the strongest players in the world will compete in a Round Robin event. The winner and runner-up of the Grand Prix series will earn their spot at the 2016 Candidate's Tournament.

Round Eight

Round 08 –February 23, 2015 - 15:00 Radjabov, Teimour 2731 ½-½ Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 2759 Giri, Anish 2797 ½-½ Grischuk, Alexander 2810 Dominguez, Leinier 2726 ½-½ Jakovenko, Dmitry 2733 Svidler, Peter 2739 0-1 Jobava, Baadur 2696 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 2775 0-1 Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2716 Kasimdzhanov, Rustam 2705 ½-½ Andreikin, Dmitry 2737

Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar

For the second game in a row Mamedyarov put his trust on the Cambridge Springs, despite obtaining a sketchy position from the opening yesterday against Grischuk. Radjabov was not as successful with his white play, obtaining no more than the slightest of edges against his opponent. White's structural advantage in the center was completely offset by the pair of bishops and breaking possibilities of Black. Radjabov saw the opportunity for a cute sequence to force a perpetual and he took it.

The head arbiter reminding Mamedyarov that there is a draw rule in effect...

which is conveniently circumvented by repetition of moves, or perpetual check

Giri, Anish ½-½ Grischuk, Alexander

A very uninteresting game when you consider that the first 28 moves had already been played in the Baku Grand Prix between Tomashevsky-Grsichuk. The "novelty" did not change the fact that the endgame is dead drawn.

Giri repeated a long line that was used in the last Grand Prix

"Hmmm.... this looks familiar

Dominguez, Leinier ½-½ Jakovenko, Dmitry

The Cuban was outplaying Jakovenko from the anti-Berlin, slowly making progress on the queenside that netted him a pawn. But, like yesterday, time pressure cost him half a point:

[Event "Tbilisi FIDE Grand Prix"] [Site "Tbilisi GEO"] [Date "2015.02.23"] [Round "8"] [White "Dominguez Perez, L."] [Black "Jakovenko, D."] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "C65"] [WhiteElo "2726"] [BlackElo "2733"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "5rk1/q1p1bbpp/2R2p2/1Pn1p3/4P3/B1P2N2/3NQPPP/6K1 w - - 0 25"] [PlyCount "19"] [EventDate "2015.02.14"] [SourceDate "2015.02.07"] 25. Bb4 Rb8 26. c4 $2 {Actaually it would have been better to pass than play this move; Dominguez forgets that the reason that Black cannot go Be8 is thanks to Qc4+.} (26. Nh4 $1 g6 27. h3 $16 {provoking the weakness on f6 is important as Bxc5 becomes a threat in several lines.}) 26... Be8 $1 {White's rook is in some problems since White doesn't have Qc4+ any more.} 27. Bxc5 Bxc5 28. Ra6 Qb7 29. Nb3 {Now Black's pair of bishops give him very real chances to hold on.} Bb4 30. Ne1 c6 31. Nd3 cxb5 $1 {Nice. The calculation for this is simple and it forces the draw.} 32. Nxb4 bxc4 33. Qxc4+ Bf7 {White's up a piece, but obviously that will not be true for long.} 34. Nd5 (34. Nd5 Bxd5 35. Qxd5+ Qxd5 36. exd5 Rxb3 $11) 1/2-1/2

Svidler, Peter 0-1 Jobava, Baadur

Jobava wins his third game in this tournament, clearly recovering from a bad start. His game today against Svidler was a beautiful example of how to neutralize your opponent's seemingly dangerous initiative:

[Event "Tbilisi FIDE Grand Prix"] [Site "Tbilisi GEO"] [Date "2015.02.23"] [Round "8"] [White "Svidler, P."] [Black "Jobava, Ba"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "B12"] [WhiteElo "2739"] [BlackElo "2696"] [PlyCount "62"] [EventDate "2015.02.14"] [SourceDate "2015.02.07"] 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. Be2 Nd7 6. O-O {Black has tried every move here, basically, including Ne7 (main line), h6, bg6, c5, be7, qc7.. but Jobava always finds ways to come up with a move no one has thought of. h5 earlier in the tournament wasa disaster, so he goes for a different style.} f6 {Probably objectively bad as Black doesn't seem developed enough for this break. However proving it over the board is not so easy.} 7. c4 (7. Bd3 $5) 7... fxe5 8. dxe5 Bc5 9. Nc3 a6 10. cxd5 cxd5 {Black is very close to finishing his development, and if he manages to do that he should be quite happy with his position. The blockade on d4 won't hold... unless Svidler gives up his structure.} 11. Be3 $5 {cementing White's hold over d4 at the cost of a long term weakness on e3 and e5.} Bxe3 12. fxe3 Ne7 13. Qb3 Qb8 14. Qa3 { Svidler doesn't even try to hold on to his pawn, instead he wants to develop an initiative that will keep Black's king in the center.} Nxe5 15. Nd4 N5c6 16. Nxf5 (16. g4 $5 Nxd4 17. exd4 Bg6 18. Na4 {kept quite a bit of compensation now that Black cannot castle kingside and White's knight is threatening to go to c5.}) 16... exf5 17. Bf3 Qe5 18. Qc5 O-O-O {of course, castling long doesn't look particularly safe, but Black is trying to get his king to the corner and then push White back. His development is almost finished.} 19. Rfd1 Kb8 20. b4 Rd6 $1 {This is a key resource, and a superb fine from Jobava. Thanks to this rook lift Black is able to beat White's attack back.} 21. b5 Rc8 $1 {This is the point. The knight on c6 is untouchable and taking on a6 does not work either.} 22. Rac1 (22. bxc6 Rdxc6 23. Qd4 Qxd4 24. Rxd4 Rxc3 $19) (22. bxa6 Nd8 $19 {The knight on d8 protects b7 against any checkmating threat, so the c3 knight is simply hanging. a7+ doesn't work since the knight on e7 is still defending the c8 rook.}) 22... Na7 23. Qa3 axb5 24. Ne2 Rxc1 25. Rxc1 Nac6 {White simply doesn't have enough for two pawns. Black is consolidating and the rest is easy for Jobava.} 26. Qc5 g5 27. h3 b4 28. a3 Re6 29. Kf2 d4 30. exd4 Qxc5 31. dxc5 {Transformatino of advantages. White wins a pawn, but it is temporary, and Black has all the pluses in the position now, including activity.} Ne5 $1 (31... Ne5 32. Ra1 Ra6 33. a4 Nd3+ {is a clean two extra pawns.}) 0-1

Never count Jobava out! Three wins recover him nicely from his early tournament losses.

Vahchier-Lagrave, Maxime 0-1 Tomashevsky, Evgeny

A crazy game! The following were all true:

-White had at, a point, a rook and four pawns against three minor pieces.

-Many moves later, that material balance were the only pieces remaining on the board

-Black took all of White's pawns.

-White was down "4 points of material" in the beginner's scale (rook vs. two bishops and a knight) but it wasn't clear that he was lost.

-The only difference between the starting position of the minor pieces vs. rook endgame was that Black pushed White's king to the side of the board, allowing his bishops to corral it into a mating net.

With this win Tomashevsky is winning a huge 24 points of win and has a full point ahead of Jakovenko. With his 82 points that he accumulated in Baku, if he wins this tournament he will have a great chance of qualifying for the Candidates in Khanty-Mansiysk, which is the final GP.

MVL was unable to hold the most unusual of material imbalances

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam ½-½ Andreikin, Dmitry

A solid but fought-out draw. The structural advantage that Kasimdzhanov enjoyed was simply too small to create real problems.

The players analysing with FIDE president officer Anastasiya Karlovich

Standings

Round Eight Games

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Photos from the official website by Maria Emelianova

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