A Simple Highlight from the Grand Swiss
Round 5 of the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss had no shortage of storylines, from Yağız Kaan Erdoğmuş’s heroic 190-move defensive against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, or the upset of World Champion Gukesh by Abhimanyu Mishra, among other surprising results.
Peter Heine Nielsen picked out another moment, describing it as “Never seen such use of rooks before, exploiting pins!”
This position is from the all-Indian matchup Sarin-Mendonca. 38. …Kf7?! set up the first cool move, 39. Rf5!.
White threatens to take on e5, ruining Black’s pawns and creating connected passed pawns on the g- and h-files. So Black defended 39. …Rcc5, and White responded 40. Rgg5!.
Not only is there a pin along the a2/g8 diagonal, and not only is there a pin of the f-pawn to Black’s king, there is also a pin along the 5th rank where all four rooks stand! Neither rook can be captured by a pawn, nor can e4 be captured by the black rook (40. …Rxe4?? 41. Rxg7+ Kxg7 42. Rxc5.). 40. …Rxf5 41. Rxf5 Bf8 42. g4 began White’s advance (42. e5! would also have been a winning endgame), and they later won.
The Grand Swiss is full of dramatic moments for analysis, and also plenty of enjoyable chess quirks.
