Chess (#1046)

The Thessaloniki Grand Prix ended with a banger of a last round. Leinier Dominguez Perez logged the best victory of his career, scoring 8 from 11 (+6,-1,=4). The Cuban GM gains 30 Elo. He was followed by Gata Kamksy and Fabiano Caruana who shared second with 7.5 each. Alexander Grischuk and Ruslan Ponomariov shared 4-5 with 6 each. Rustam Kasimdzhanov was sixth with 5.5. Grischuk was the only unbeaten player.

The last round started with Dominguez playing Veselin Topalov while Caruana met Kamsky. Dominguez and Kamsky had 7.5 each, with Caruana on 6.5. Dominguez won a sharp rook ending after being on the back-foot. Caruana spun out a mating attack when Kamsky blundered in time-trouble.

The bottom half was populated with iconic players. Vassily Ivanchuk came last. Alexander Morozevich, Etienne Bacrot, Peter Svidler, Hikaru Nakamura and Topalov had minus scores. It's been a packed schedule and tiredness may have played a role. Moro has had health issues for two years. Ivanchuk has been increasingly troubled by the clock.

The Danzhou GM was restricted to Chinese players and had a prize fund of about 300,000 Yuan (roughly $48,000). The 10-player round robin featured six players with 2600-plus Elo. It was won by Ding Liren with 7 from 9, ahead of Bu Xiangzhi and Ni Hua who both scored 6.

The June rating lists sees Magnus Carlsen far ahead at 2864. Levon Aronian (2813) and Vladimir Kramnik (2803) are also over 2800. Anand is back in fourth (2786) after a dip to seventh. Nakamura, Topalov, Karjakin, Grischuk, Caruana and Morozevich are the rest of the top 10. In the women's list, Koneru Humpy (2597) has just edged ahead of Yifan Hou (2596).

The rook ending in the DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY, (Dominguez Perez Vs Topalov Thessaloniki Grand Prix 2013) is tricky. All rook endings are proverbially drawn but that's only because nobody plays error-free rook endings.

White can win here with 53.b7! Rb2+ 54.Kc3 Rb1 55.Rh7 h2 56.Rxh2 because 56.-- Rxb7 57. Rh8+ Kc7 58. Rh7+ is a won pawn ending. Otherwise 56.--Kc7 57. Rh7+ Kb8 58. Rg7 is winning anyhow.

But white played 53.Rh7? Kc8 54.Kc5 Rc2+ 55.Kd6 h2 56.Kxe6 Rg2 57.Ke5 Rxg3 58.Rxh2 Topalov needs to find 58...Kb7! 59.Rb2 Rg1 60.Ke4 Re1+ 61.Kf3 Rf1+ 62.Kg3 Rg1+ 63.Kh4 Rh1+ 64.Kg5 Rg1+ 65.Kf6 Rg4 and =. There is no way for white to surround and pick up the g6-pawn.

But Topalov picked the wrong concept with 58...Rb3? 59.Rh8+ Kb7 60.Rh7+ Kxb6 61.Kf6. Black's king is cut-off and white escorts the pawn through. The game finished 61...Rb4 62.Kg5 Kc6 63.Rf7 Kd5 64.Kxg6 Rb6+ 65.Kg5 Rb8 66.f5 Rg8+ 67.Kf6 Ke4 68.Ra7 Rf8+ 69.Kg6 Rg8+ 70.Kf7 Rh8 71.Kg7 (1-0).

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player