Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The fifth round of one of the most competitive chess tournaments of the year, the 2015 Shamkir Chess Tournament, was held on April 21 in the Azerbaijan’s region of Shamkir.

Current world champion Magnus Carlsen shined at the Gashimov Memorial as he gained a one point advantage over other participants, following the results in the fifth tour of the tournament.

The match between Carlsen and French Vachier-Lagrave Maxime ended with Carlsen's victory over his opponent.

Although all seemed to bode well for the French player, Carlsen took the lead after the fourth move and never lost his advantage after that. Comfortable in the game, the Norwegian left his opponent to chance. With this loss the French GM lost all opportunity to move higher up in the competition.

Commenting on his victory, Norwegian Magnus said, "This victory is well deserved. The pressure was as much as my rival allowed. I am so happy to have come on top. But, it is not the end of the competition."

Vachier-Lagrave, in turn, associated his defeat with his rival’s clever tactic. ” I will fight to the end. Shamkir has no weak rival,” he said.

Azerbaijani Shakhriyar Mammadyarov took his first victory in the tournament, defeating Vladimir Kramnik after a wearisome 6:35 minutes game. The Russian GM was unable to join the press conference.

”So far, Azerbaijani chess players have not defeated Kramnik. I am happy to be the first who could deal with him."

Talking about Kramnik's absence at the press conference, Shakhriyar associated it with fatigue after a long game. “There is nothing strange in his absence,” he noted.

The second of FIDE Italian Fabiano Caruana and Dutch Giri Anish agreed to a draw. Although Italian GM was very close to a victory, a wrong move on his part led to draw.

Giri said the rival had a great advantage, but could not however change the course of the game in his favor.

Another victory was also celebrated, this time by world champion Anand Viswanathan over American Wesley So.

The game was interesting, noted the winner of the match. “Actually, I wanted to use this tactics on Magnus, however, it worked on So,” Anand said.

Azerbaijani Rauf Mammadov settled for a draw with Michael Adams from England.

Talking about his opponent, Mammadov said, he was a fan of Adams, adding that he believe he will be able to improve his results should he compete twice a year in such tournaments.

Looking at the table Magnus took his tally to an astounding 4 points, and is now trailed by Wesley So who moved to 3.5 points. Anand gained 3 points, leaving behind Karmnik and Mammadyarov with 2.5 points, while Giri, Mammadov, Fabiano and Vachier-Lagrave scored 2.0 points and Adams 1.5 points.

Today, April 22 the tournament announced a day of rest for all players.

The fund price of the tournament which will last until April 26 stands at €100,000.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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