[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: The Daily Update: Everything else (European Club Cup, Essent, Chicago)

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
The Daily Update: Everything else (European Club Cup, Essent, Chicago)
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1224538214.shtml


   Radjabov-Carlsen: No Dragon this time, but he was able to draw with
   his eyes closed in a Berlin. (Bacrot also drew with the Berlin against
   Volokitin, but there Black's position looked extremely suspicious for
   a while. And then there's Adams-Wang Yue, where Black gave a clinic on
   drawing the same-colored bishop ending.)
   Aronian crushed Kamsky in a nice Anti-Gruenfeld; Kamsky does not look
   like he's in good shape for his match with Topalov - assuming it's
   going to happen, which isn't clear at all.
   I mentioned a Poisoned Pawn Winawer French the other day, and there
   was one in this round as well. This one was between Vallejo and
   Volkov, won by White in a long game that could have been quite a bit
   shorter.
   As a sort of supplement to [1]my ChessBase show two weeks ago, where I
   covered the game Anand-Macieja, Bundesliga 2006, have a look at Perez
   Candelario-Galkin, a Main Line Classical Caro-Kann where Black used
   that same plan with ...b5 - and won this time.
   Nabaty-Miroshnichenko was an amusing miniature (except for Nabaty and
   his teammates, of course). The game went 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4
   4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bd7 6.f4 e5 7.Nf3 Bc6 8.Bc4 Be7 9.fxe5 Nxe4 10.Nxe4
   Bxe4, and now if not already, White got excited by Bxf7+ Kxf7 Ng5+ and
   Nxe4 tactics. So: 11.exd6 Qxd6 12.Bxf7+ Kxf7 13.Qxd6?? Bxd6 14.Ng5+
   Kg6 15.Nxe4 Re8 and White resigned. He regained the piece alright, but
   now he's losing it again for good. Ironically, 12.Bxf7+ was fine, but
   he had to play 13.Ng5+. Black can't play 13...Bxg5 because the queen
   hangs, and after 13...Kg6 14.Nxe4 Black's activity balances White's
   extra pawn.
   Tournament site [2]here; games on [3]TWIC.
   In [4]Essent, Ivan Sokolov is leading the Crown Group at 2-0, Smeets
   has 1.5-.5, Ahmed Adly has .5-1.5 and Marie Sebag is 0-2. In the Open,
   three players are tied for first with 3.5/4, one of whom is
   13-year-old American IM Ray Robson. He turns 14 on the 25th; will he
   get a GM norm for a birthday present?
   Meanwhile, at the [5]16th North American FIDE Invitational, IM Ben
   Finegold appears to have shaken off whatever was wrong last month, and
   has come out of the weekend in clear first with 3.5/4. The top non-IM
   score so far is 2.5/4 by Peter Bereolos, who needs 3.5 from the last
   five games to get an IM norm.

References

   1. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1223449808.shtml
   2. http://ecc2008.chessdom.com/
   3. http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html
   4. http://www.essentchess.nl/
   5. http://nachess.org/fide/