Svidler Beats Korobov, Joins Arjun In The Lead
GM Peter Svidler defeated co-leader GM Anton Korobov in round five of the 2024 TePe Sigeman Chess Tournament and now shares the lead with GM Arjun Erigaisi, who drew his game with GM Vincent Keymer. GMs Ju Wenjun and Nodirbek Abdusattorov were both doing well in different phases of their drawn game, the same result as in GM Nils Grandelius vs. GM Marc'Andria Maurizzi.
The big game in round six is the one between the two leaders Arjun and Svidler. It starts Thursday, May 2, at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CEST / 6:30 p.m. IST.
TePe Sigeman Round 5 Results
TePe Sigeman Standings After Round 5
With two rounds to go, the 29th TePe Sigeman tournament is far from decided yet. While the leaders will fight it out on Thursday, a draw in that game will give Korobov and Keymer, both playing with the white pieces (against Grandelius and Abdusattorov, respectively) a chance to catch them.
The 2023 winner surged to the top today by winning the only decisive game of the round. Svidler's opening moves were once again related to his recent work with GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, but this time it was revealed that their collaboration works both ways.
Svidler credited Pragg for his interesting sideline, a Qxd4 Sicilian followed by putting that queen on e3 and a queenside fianchetto. "He is suggesting which first move I should make and sometimes, like up to move six maybe, that’s my prep," said Svidler. "I’ve had sort of, by my standards, more than enough chess in the last three months so I’m very happy not to do anything at all."
He is suggesting which first move I should make.
—Peter Svidler
Svidler was happy to see his opponent going 6...e6 (a particularly logical alternative is 6...g6) as it leads to positions that both he and the engine like for White. Still, the position was objectively fine for Black (though more pleasant to play as White perhaps) before Korobov made a "massive mistake" (Svidler) by going 23...Nb5.
Position after 23...Nb5.
The problem was mostly tactical: after 24.Bxb5 axb5 25.Qe2! White won a crucial tempo by attacking the b5-pawn, which made the maneuver Nf5-e3-d5 possible. Korobov defended quite cleverly after that, but another big mistake on move 32 (a flawed tactic played almost instantly) suddenly led to the loss of material. GM Rafael Leitao provides a more thorough analysis below:
On his new status as co-leader in the tournament Svidler said: "I like it here, what can I say? It’s just very nice here, I feel comfortable, and I enjoy playing in this tournament."
i arrive and we get an immediate win. violent svidler loyalists unite! pic.twitter.com/zm9NQGM1iq
— MrDodgy (@ChessProblem) May 1, 2024
Abdusattorov missed a big chance to join the group that is half a point behind the leaders. At the same time, half a point wasn't such a terrible result if you look at the position he got out of the opening, after misplaying an Alapin Sicilian from the black side.
The tables turned on move 23, when the Uzbek GM grabbed the initiative and slowly started outplaying his opponent until he reached a winning position on move 48. There, he won a pawn, but he should have done it in another way, leaving more (active) pieces on the board. As it went, Ju could hold the position, but not before showing another 35 moves of excellent defense.
The other two draws were similar, in the sense that both games saw (very) long theoretical lines where the equilibrium was never disturbed — the kind of games that are simply part of modern chess.
Grandelius actually wanted to play a slow game against Maurizzi, but by the time he found himself caught in (Italian) theoretical waters it was too late to get out of them. This author isn't sure where the knowledge of the players ended, but feels it could have been quite late in the game.
It was more or less the same in Arjun-Keymer, in fact the first game to finish in this round. "I don't think there was any spice in this game," said Arjun, and that says something coming from an Indian player. (Vindaloo, anyone?)
It was an Anti-Marshall Ruy Lopez where Keymer played an engine-based novelty on move 13 which was surely going to be played at some point as it is "the most critical approach" (Keymer) in an important position of this particular line.
A few moves later, Black could suddenly put his knight en prise on e3, in the middle of White's camp, and it could even stay there a bit longer. Keymer had planned it all beforehand and revealed that White's 20th move was the first he didn't know. By then, he didn't need to work that hard anymore to keep the game equal.
The live broadcast was hosted by GMs Laurent Fressinet and Stellan Brynell.
The Tepe Sigeman Chess Tournament takes place April 27-May 3, 2024, at the Elite Plaza Hotel in Malmo, Sweden. The players compete in an eight-player single round-robin. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, with 30 more minutes for the rest of the game and a 30-second increment per move.
Previous coverage:
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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