Five games, five draws, Mamedyarov retains the lead
In the previous posts we were praising the players for their fighting spirit and for the display of interesting chess.
Vugar Gashimov memorial 2017 round 7 saw different turn of events. Five games, five relatively colourless draws and virtually not a single serious mistake by any player.
Grandmaster’s chess at it’s finest.
The most interesting game in my humble opinion was the short but explosive Sicilian encounter between Radjabov and Topalov.
In a very sharp theoretical battle, Topalov played a novel move that seemed like a blunder that loses the exchange at first sight.
However, it turned out that White can’t keep his material advantage and Radjabov had to go into an equal endgame.
Thus Topalov’s novelty virtually shut down this line for White at the moment.
The game is analyzed below.