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

[Email subscription to blog articles]

Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
The Daily Update: Everything else (ECC, Essent, Chicago)
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1224626358.shtml


   At the [1]European Club Cup (games downloadable through [2]TWIC),
   fewer games caught my eye today, but that might be because I was a
   little tired from blogging on the world championship. Here are some of
   the games you might want to check out:
   Pavasovic-Karjakin was a sharp, theoretically significant line of the
   6.Bc4 Najdorf that has been popular lately. The game ended in a draw.
   (Btw, do any other Greek speakers/readers see "Panasonic" when the
   read the white player's name?)
   Sasikiran-Radjabov was a Saemisch with 5.Bg5, and again Radjabov
   slowly managed to break through on the queenside while White tried
   unsuccessfully to make something happen in the center and the
   kingside. Score another one for the world champion of the King's
   Indian.
   Sakaev-Bauer was very entertaining. Bauer played a dodgy line of the
   English Defense once thought to have been refuted by Beliavsky in a
   game with Short from an early FIDE k.o. event (Groningen 1997, I
   think), but that has come back from the dead. It looks shocking if
   you've never seen it before, and even if you have it'll still catch
   your eye. Unfortunately, the players agreed to a draw in a position
   that looked full of life.
   That's it for today, but use the time you'd spend replaying games by
   checking out the videos on the [3]tournament site. I do recommend
   skipping about the first 30 seconds and the last 25 seconds of each,
   though.
   On to [4]Essent: Sokolov moved to 3-0 in the Crown Group with a win
   over Smeets, while Sebag and Adly drew. So after the first round robin
   of two, Sokolov leads, Smeets has 1.5, Adly has 1 and Sebag has .5. As
   for Ray Robson, he lost on board 1 in the Open, but we'll keep an eye
   on his results and see if he can make a successful run at a GM norm.
   In Chicago, at the [5]16th North American FIDE Invitational, Finegold
   continues to lead with an impressive 4.5/5. Bereolos lost in round 5
   to drop to 50%; he'll need 3.5/4 the rest of the way for an IM norm.
   Felecan's win in round 5 brought him to 3-2, so he needs "only" 3/4
   for the norm.

References

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