GRISCHUK WINS AND JOINS THE LEADERS WHILE THE UNLIMITED DRAWS CONTINUE
By now there is no doubt that my sports betting career is definitely over even before it began.
Because even the slightest hope of avoiding infinite draws in the later rounds of Sharjah Grand Prix 2017 dissappeared with the round 8.
Once again, there were only two out of nine decisive games. The first winner was, surprisingly, by his own admission, “out-of-form“ Pavel Eljanov, who won against an even more “out-of-form” Jon Ludvig Hammer with the Black pieces.
The other hero responsible for at least some entertainment for chess spectators is Alexander Grischuk. So far he hasn’t been under the spotlight in this tournament, but he has played a rather solid chess, and today he managed to outplay the ever-strong Mamedyarov.
The game was pretty uneven. Initially, Grischuk built up a large advantage due to Mamedyarov missplaying the opening. However, in the middle game, Sasha missed the best way of utilizing this advantage, and let Mamedyarov completely back in the game. However, in an even endgame, Mamedyarov commited several inaccuracies and finally went down in a nice grinding display.
GAME ANALYSIS: ALEXANDAR GRISCHUK – SHAKHRIYAR MAMEDYAROV
The game analysis with commentary is given below. Hint: Click on any move and the pop-up board will appear: