GM Joel's Chess Week Recap

Gashimov Memorial and Reykjavik Open

From Round 1 of the Gashimov Memorial, GM Joel analyzes for us So vs. Mamedyarov. Wesley is the hottest player at the moment, and his long undefeated streak had all the chess world wondering if the young American would be able to leapfrog the world champion in the rating list. But being so confident doomed Wesley, who got outplayed by Mamedyarov, one of the most motivated players in Shamkir. Mame was a close friend to the late Vugar Gashimov, and it's easy to imagine he'd love to win the tournament named after his friend. Then Joel moves on to show us a rather extraordinary rook sacrifice played by Vladimir Kramnik, who has radically changed his playing style in recent years. He opens 1.e4 and dives into highly tactical positions! In this game, when Vlad understood he was lost, boom! Rook sac. Computers say the sacrifice wasn't sound at all, but Kramnik wasn't playing a piece of silicon, and the spectacular move led him to a brilliant victory. Anish Giri won the Reykjavik Open in a convincing way. Giri is often regarded as a player who plays very carefully, to avoid losses. But in Iceland, the young Anish proved differently, playing challenging and at time provocative chess. Joel analyzes for us Giri vs. the young German GM Domchenko. Emil Sutovsky won the Karpov Poikovsky Cup, with a stunning rating performance. Joel shows us his game vs. GM Anton. After an excellent meal, what about a lovely dessert? Joel offers us one last pearl, with a Queen sacrifice performed by Anton Korobov vs. Daniil Dubov. Another great episode of GM Joel's week chess recap!