The Chess Mind

Zahar Efimenko and Baadur Jobava share first with 5.5 after 6 of 11 rounds at the European Championships in Rijeka, Croatia. They drew each other in round 5, and have otherwise disposed of their very strong opposition so far. (Strong enough that both players enjoy 2990+ TPRs thus far.)

Half a point back are Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexander Riazantsev, Rauf Mamedov, Zoltan Almasi and Bojan Vuckovic, and then another 28 players have 4.5 points. With five rounds to go it's far from over, but on the other hand this event is a World Cup qualifier (the top 22 here qualify for that event), so with two or three rounds to go the peleton is likely to coast in with a bunch of draws.

For now, though, there's lots of action, and I noticed a number of very nice games the last couple of days. They're presented here without annotations, but you'll likely enjoy them all the same. Have a look, here.

Jacob Aagaard, from part 2/book 2 of his Attacking Manual. (I'm referring to this post.)

In part to save my readers' retinas from getting blinded by the Sokolov book cover, it's time for a new post. The topic is the utterly idiotic decision by FIDE last year to forfeit players who arrive at the board even one second after the round starts (unless the organizers explicitly address and refuse the rule in the tournament regulations). There's a petition going around the European Championships to amend the rule to give up to 30 minutes' leeway before a forfeit is declared. As of this writing, there were 110 signatories to the petition, but the organizers passed the buck to ECU President Boris Kutin. We'll see what happens.

More info here and here.

HT: supy

There are multiple right answers!

After 3 rounds in Rijeka, 12 players lead with perfect scores. (Full list here.) More interesting than table-watching is looking at the games, and I've singled out three for you.

One is a win for the attack: Nisipeanu's impressive win over Reinderman in a game that might have serious theoretical significance in the Alekhine. The second is a success for the defense: Navara seems to have the numbers in his favor, going after Pelletier's king, but the latter refuted the attack with computer-like accuracy. Finally, IM Ken Regan wrote me about a slightly quirky moment in the rook ending between Saric and Vallejo Pons.

To see and replay them, with Regan's comment to the third and my (heavy) comments to the first two, click here.

It might happen in October. More here; original (in Italian) here.

If this keeps up, Carlsen might return Kasparov's promise ring.

HT: Brian Karen