Wesley So vs Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Catalan, Open Defense E04
2018 Your Next Move (Rapid), Day 1, Leuven, Belgium, 06/12/18
The 2018 Grand Chess Tour has started! Leuven Rapid and Blitz portion is the first event to be held in the cycle. 10 of world’s strongest players will be competing to start the tour as good as possible. The time control for the rapid portion is 25’ + 10 second delay (your clock time doesn’t run for the first 10 seconds after your opponent makes a move).
Day one of the event saw Wesley So come ahead of the field by half a point with a remarkable 2.5/3, winning against Mamedyarov and Caruana and drawing MVL.
In this game he had the white pieces against Mamedyarov and he played an almost perfect open Catalan (despite Shak trying to get him out of theory early on).
Standings after day 1 (3 rounds):
Wesley So 2.5/3
Sergey Karjakin 2/3
Levon Aronian 2/3
Hikaru Nakamura 1.5/3
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 1.5/3
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 1.5/3
Anish Giri 1.5/3
Alexander Grischuk 1.5/3
Viswanathan Anand 0.5/3
Fabiano Caruana 0.5/3
Game Moves:
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 dxc4 5. Nf3 a6 6. O-O Nc6
7. e3 Rb8 8. Qe2 b5 9. b3 cxb3 10. axb3 Bd6 11. Rd1 Qe7
12. Bb2 O-O 13. Rc1 Bb7 14. Ne5 Nb4 15. Bxb7 Rxb7 16. Nc6 Nxc6
17. Rxc6 e5 18. dxe5 Bxe5 19. Bxe5 Qxe5 20. Raxa6 Rd8 21. Ra2
h5 22. Nd2 h4 23. Nf3 Qe4 24. Rc1 h3 25. Rac2 Nd5 26. Ne1 Nb4
27. Rd2 Rxd2 28. Qxd2 Ra7 29. Qd7 Ra8 30. Qxh3 Nd3 31. Nxd3
Qxd3 32. b4 Qd2 33. Qf1 Qxb4 34. Rb1 Qc3 35. Qxb5 Ra1 36. Qe8+
Kh7 37. Rxa1 Qxa1+ 38. Kg2 Qf6 39. Qd7 c6 40. h4 g6 41. g4 Kg8
42. g5 Qc3 43. Qd8+ Kh7 44. Qd4 Qc2 45. Qf4 Kg8 46. e4 c5
47. Qb8+ Kh7 48. Qe8 Kg7 49. Qe5+ Kg8 50. Qd5 c4 51. h5 Qd3
52. hxg6 1-0