Caruana vs Giri – Petrov’s Defense – “The Tipping Point” – Round 5 Reggio Emilia – Dec 31, 2011

The battle of two chess prodigies from the recent Reggio Emila tournament in Italy played on Dec 31, 2011: 19-year-old Fabiano Caruana (FIDE 2727) played white against the 17-year-old Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri (FIDE 2714). This game was the tipping point in the tournament for Giri, who actually went on to win the whole thing. At tournament end, Anish Giri edged out Caruana, Nakamura, and Morezevich by 1 point to win the tournament. If Caruana would’ve won this game, he might’ve won the tournament. Going into this Round 5 game, Giri had 2 draws and 2 losses, one to Morezevich, the other loss to Nakamura just the round before. I covered Nakamura’s Round 5 win against Ivanchuk “Lucky Against Chucky” here: www.youtube.com [Event "Reggio Emilia"] [Site "Reggio Emilia ITA"] [Date "2011.12.31"] [Round "5"] [White "F Caruana"] [Black "A Giri"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "C42"] [WhiteElo "2727"] [BlackElo "2714"] [Annotator "Microsoft"] [PlyCount "90"] [EventDate "2011.12.27"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Be7 7. c4 Bb4+ 8. Nbd2 OO 9. OO Bf5 10. Nb3 dxc4 11. Bxc4 Nc6 12. Bd3 Bg6 13. a3 Bd6 14. Re1 f5 15. Qc2 Kh8 16. Be3 Qf6 17. Nc5 Bxc5 18. dxc5 Rae8 19. Rad1 Bh5 20. Be2 f4 21. Bc1 (21. Bd4 Nxd4 22. Nxd4 Bg6 23. Bf3 Ng5 24. Qc3 c6 25. Rxe8 Rxe8) 21… a5 22. Qc4 Re7 23. h3 Rfe8 24. Kf1 (24. Rf1 Ng5 25. Qxf4 Nxh3+ 26. gxh3 Qxf4 27. Bxf4 Rxe2 28. Nd2 Ne5 29. Be3 Kg8 30. Rfe1 Rxe3 31. fxe3 Rd8 32. Nc4 Rxd1 33. Rxd1 Nxc4 34. Rd8+) 24… h6 25. Qc2 Nxf2 26 …