Baku Grand Prix 2014

The first Grand Prix event of this World Championship cycle is held in Baku, where many great chess players were born, not only Kasparov, Radjabov and Gashimov, but also for example Armenian Akopian and Israeli Sutovsky.

The field is very strong, with Caruana, Grischuk, Nakamura, Karjakin, Mamedyarov, Dominguez, Gelfand, Svidler, Radjabov, Andreikin, Kasimdzhanov and Tomashevsky.

Caruana has been in incredible form lately, but will have a 2845 rating to defend, and will need another top performance not to lose rating points. Grischuk has been quite solid for a long time and has his eyes set on reaching 2800, while Nakamura and Karjakin have been dropping points lately and will be hoping to get some back.

Home players Mamedyarov and Radjabov are no easy opponents, while it will be interesting to see how veterans like Gelfand and Svidler will perform. Andreikin did well in the Candidates and Dominguez is knocking on the door to the top 10 list. On the whole a tournament that looks really interesting.

In spite of the length of the cycle (with Candidates in 2016) there will only be four free days between the first two Grand Prix tournaments, and eight players will have to participate in both.

The first round:

Dominguez - Kasimdzhanov

Tomashevsky - Grischuk

Karjakin - Caruana

Gelfand - Andreikin

Nakamura - Svidler

Mamedyarov - Radjabov

Official site: http://baku2014.fide.com

http://www.chess.com/news/participants-fide-grand-prix-announced-4455

Carlsson should play here, he wil lose with Anand. 

Predictions: Mamedyarov to win, Grischuk second, Caruana to score +2 in third place, Kasimdzhanov to finish last, Dominguez to be the only winner in the first round,

Got any theories on why Moscow considers itself the center of the Chess world?

Caruana just beat Karjakin in time trouble.  He just keeps rolling along...

Only one Russian player in the top 9 after today's round, that can't have happened since the 1930s, if even then.

Old-Time Chess Rankings:

1 Russian Jews

2 Russians

3 Other Jews

4 Others

The current state of affairs is more of an embarassment to Jews than it is to Russians.

#restrainblockadedestroy

How it could look in the early 1990s...

1     Kasparov, Garry                         URS  2800     
2     Karpov, Anatoly                         URS  2725   
3     Gelfand, Boris                            URS  2700       
4     Ivanchuk, Vassily                        URS  2695            
5     Bareev, Evgeny                           URS  2650            
6     Gurevich, Mikhail                        URS  2650           
7     Ehlvest, Jaan                              URS  2650          
8     Yudasin, Leonid                          URS  2645           
9     Salov, Valery                              URS  2645           
10   Beliavsky, Alexander G.             URS  2640    

Today all players in the top nine represent different countries, and apart from Grischuk only Aronian was born in the Soviet Union of those in the top eight (with Mamedyarov in ninth).

fabelhaft,

look up the word "loyalty"

An amazing all in attack by Mamedyarov against Caruana in the 4th round:

http://goo.gl/LHc0rr