FIDE Grand Prix: Vladimir Akopian managed to redeem
In the 8th round of FIDE Grand Prix Vladimir managed to redeem himself somewhat but remained in bottom position with a hard worked win against Inarkiev. From a Slav, the line transposed to a Grunfeld e3 system and the players followed a game played last year. Then Gagunashvili played 11…Nxe4 against Mamedyarov but was busted quite quickly. Ernesto went for the quieter 11…Re8 but after Akopian’s provocative 14.b3, white surprised him with 14…Nxd5 15.Nxf7!
Ernesto played the middle game extremely well and gave up his queen to get a dynamically equal position. Black seemed to have got his pieces co-ordinated around move 30 but Vladimir kept on pressing. Nevertheless, black defended well and kudos to Akopian for not accepting the repetition and continuing to probe until Inarkiev drifted. White won a pawn on the king side and this turned out eventually to be decisive. Final times (0:02 – 0:01).