NH Tournament, Round 6

The second cycle started today, and it was a re-run of round 1 in all but two respects. The pairings were the same, but the first difference was the reversed colors - this time, the Experience team had White on all the boards. Second and more notably, the results were all the same, too, with but one exception. Svidler and Giri drew once more, as did Nielsen and So. Gelfand and Nakamura again triumphed over Howell and Ljubojevic, respectively. The one change was that van Wely beat Caruana, and as a result the Rising Stars' lead narrowed to a single point: 15.5-14.5.

As for the "Amber sweepstakes" (the high scorer on the Rising Stars team gets an automatic invitation to the 2011 Amber Rapid and Blind tournament), the standings look like this:

1. Giri 4

2. Nakamura 3.5

3. Caruana 3

4-5. So, Howell 2.5

Tournament site here, games (with my comments) here.

Naiditsch Wins Match vs. Efimenko 3.5-2.5

Website here.

NH Tournament, Round 5: Gelfand and Giri Win

The Experience team did well with Black today, breaking even against their young rivals. Giri gained an opening advantage against Nielsen, lost most of it, but then won in the latter's time trouble. Gelfand came out of the opening and middlegame well, reaching an ending that should have been drawn with correct play from Nakamura. The American was either careless or made a misjudgment, however, and Gelfand smoothly brough home the full point. So-van Wely and Howell-Svidler were both short draws, but of very different kinds. The first game was So needing to take a day off after a painful loss, while the second game was wild to the point of being out of control. Finally, Caruana was winning against Ljubojevic, but when he finally tried to cash in his advantage, he miscalculated and let his opponent escape with a draw.

Giri thus leads the Amber sweepstakes with 3.5 points. Caruana has 3, both Howell and Nakamura have 2.5, and So has two. Overall, the Rising Stars lead 13.5-11.5. This is the end of the first round-robin, and tomorrow will be a rest day; play resumes on Wednesday.

Official site here, games (with my comments) here.

The Daily Update: World Junior Championships and More (Non-NH News)

(1) World Junior Championships. In the main event, both Dmitry Andreikin and Sanan Sjugirov drew in the last round, and thus finished tied with 10/13. As expected, Andreikin had the better tiebreak scores, and thus won the champion's title. Still, Sjugirov deserves lots of credit. Not only was it a great result in its own right, but it's even more impressive considering that he's just 17 years old, and this is open to players under 20. Stranger yet: Andreikin, according to both Wikipedia (see the list of GMs) and FIDE already turned 20 in February. (It sounds like he should be ineligible, but the rule is that the player must be under 20 as of the start of the year. It's too bad they didn't have that rule a couple of decades ago! [And if they did, I need a lawyer to sue the USCF! {Just kidding...mostly.}])*

As for the girls: Anna Muzychuk bounced back from yesterday's loss to win her final game, while Olga Girya only managed to draw. So Muzychuk is the girl's champion, free and clear.

(2) Efimenko vs. Naiditsch: Naiditsch had White in game 4, but was in big trouble early on. I'm surprised that he saved the game, but after 97 moves of scratching and clawing he earned the draw and maintains a one-point lead. Two games remain.

(3) Gyorgy Marx Memorial. This finished in a resounding triumph for Czech GM Viktor Laznicka, who rounded off the tournament with a last-round win over Ray Robson. Laznicka's 8/10 (2867 TPR!) put him two and a half points ahead of Zoltan Almasi and Ferenc Berkes, who tied for second-third with 5.5. Peter Acs had 4.5, Jan Timman (who beat Almasi in the last round) wound up with 3.5, and Robson finished in the cellar with 3.

* In case you're wondering: After two near-misses I had qualified for the US Junior Championship, only to get a phone call from a USCF politico (Randy Hough) asking, to make sure, when my birthday would be. I told him, and then he said "I was just confirming. I'm sorry, but you can't play, because you will turn 20 two days before the World Junior starts." I suggested that in the unlikely event that I won, the second-place finisher could go in my stead, but this suggestion obviously made too much sense for the USCF, and was thus rejected. That stunk, but as Experience 101 informs us all, life isn't always fair!

NH Tournament, Round 4: The Old-Timers Strike Back

The Experience team put the white pieces to good use today, winning 3.5-1.5 and thus narrowing the overall gap to two points (11-9).

Svidler won first and fairly easily against Nakamura's Caro-Kann, giving him four straight wins overall against the American #1 and an overall score in databased games of 7-1 (two draws). Nakamura kept his king in the center, and Svidler took advantage in good style. That dropped Nakamura out of clear first in the Amber sweepstakes and into a three-way tie.

Ljubojevic had a real battle against Wesley So. So played well and stood better, but Ljubo bamboozled him in the complications and trapped the enemy queen. He made a mistake and gave So a chance to make a real fight of it, but 31...Nxa2?? lost the game immediately and for good. 2-0, oldsters.

The third win for the Experience team was Nielsen's. He took over the queenside, won a pawn, and then won a rook and bishop ending without much trouble, despite the bishops of opposite color.

Gelfand-Caruana was a weird but interesting game that ended in a draw much too quickly. What a pity Gelfand isn't more of a fighter!

Finally, the one bit of good news for the youngsters came in van Wely-Giri. Van Wely was White in a sort of Karpov Variation Semi-Slav, but without d2-d4. That allowed Giri to take advantage with ...e7-e5, and now van Wely had a choice: accept an inferior, passive position, or sac a piece and for a couple of pawns and some initiative. He chose the latter, but Giri put out all the fires, kept the piece, and won.

After four rounds Nakamura, Caruana and Giri have 2.5 points, Howell has 2 and So 1.5.

Tournament site here, games (with my comments) here.

Non-NH News: Big Tournaments Near the Finish Line

(1) World Junior Championships. There's one round left, and two are tied for first. One is Dmitry Andreikin, who has led from start to finish and must be in good shape if it comes down to tiebreaks. The other is Elistan Sanan Sjugirov; both have 9.5/12. Three players are a point behind going into the last round: Maxim Matlakov, A.R. Saleh Salem and Jon Ludvig Hammer.

In the last round Andreikin has White against Hammer, Sjugirov has Black against Salem, and Matlakov (the favorite of senior citizens everywhere*) has White against Parimarjan Negi.

The girls' championship was less interesting for a variety of reasons, notably that Anna Muzychuk (2527) outrated her nearest competitor by more than 120 points and almost everyone else by 200 or (far) more points. And until this last round, the general impression was right. She lost today to the only other player over 2400, one D.E.T. Cori (2403) (a strange pairing, as Muzychuk went into the round 3 points ahead of her opponent), and now there's an actual competition. Muzychuk and Olga Girya both have 10 points, and Rout Padmini has 9.5.

In the last round Muzychuk has White against Ekaterini Pavlidou (2182), Girya has White against Irina Andrenko (2133), and in case they both fail to win, Padmini can tie for first (or better), but only by defeating Cori with Black.

(2) Gyorgy Marx Memorial. Viktor Laznicka continues like a house on fire, drawing in round 8 and winning in round 9. His score of 7/9 clinches clear first with a round to go, as Zoltan Almasi's second-place total is but 5.5. In the cellar, both Jan Timman and Ray Robson lost in round 8, but in round 9 the latter beat the former to leapfrog him.

(3) China vs. Russia. I don't know if this event has finished or if there are blitz games yet to come, but according to TWIC China leads (or perhaps has won) 128-122.

(4) Efimenko-Naiditsch. Game 3 of this six-game match was drawn on Saturday, and today's a rest day. Total score: Naiditsch 2, Efimenko 1.

* A silly pun for primarily U.S. consumption.

NH Tournament, Round 3: Kids Win and Win and Win. UPDATE: Games Now Included

The Experience team is strong, but so far it's the kids ("Rising Stars") who are enjoying the upper hand. Today was another White round for the youngsters, and they parlayed it into a 4-1 win that could very plausibly have been 4.5-.5. Gelfand drew easily against So with his beloved Petroff, but in all the other games White obtained a serious edge. Giri had a nice edge against Ljubojevic, but decided to be a superhero and sac a piece. This wasn't quite as clever as he had thought, but he eventually managed to save what worked out to be a very entertaining game.

Nakamura got a nice edge against Nielsen, and with a minor, immediately forgiven hiccup brought home the point. Caruana detonated an atomic bomb of a novelty against Svidler in a hot Grünfeld line and won in style. Finally, van Wely lost to Howell in a 6.g3 Najdorf. Howell sacrificed a pawn for a light-squared bind, and van Wely didn't manage to cope with the positional pressure.

So the kids won the round and lead overall 9.5-5.5; of course, the oldsters get their shot with White in the next round, so the lead might well narrow.

Tournament site here, games (with my comments) here.

The News From Everywhere Else

The NH Tournament is the most prominent event on the scene, but it's not the only one worthy of attention. Here's an update on some of the other big events in our burgeoning chess world.

(1) The 5th FIDE Women's Grand Prix. Antoaneta Stefanova made Hou Yifan work very hard in the last round, but the latter held on, drew, and won the tournament with an 8-3 score. Stefanova was half a point behind, and three other players were a further point back. Hou is nearing 2600, which is all the more impressive since she's still only 16 years old. She's still somewhat under the radar, as she mostly plays in women's events, but that probably won't last for long.

(2) World Junior Championship. Three rounds of thirteen remain, and Dmitry Andreikin continues to cling to a narrow lead. He has 8/10, half a point ahead of Elista's Sanan Sjugirov and the Peruvian Emilio Arturo Cordova Daza. Eight others, including Jon Ludvig Hammer, are another half-point back.

(3) Russia vs. China. The rapid portion is finished (I think), and the Chinese team continues to lead this marathon event 104.5-95.5.

(4) Gyorgy Marx Memorial. Czech GM Viktor Laznicka continues to lead, and impressively. His score of 5.5/7 gives him a 2857 TPR and a full point lead with three rounds to go. The talented American youngster Ray Robson is taking his lumps and is in last place with two points, but this as much as a sign of the tournament's strength than of his weakness. His TPR is a respectable 2499 and he's only half a point behind the legendary Dutch GM Jan Timman.

(5) Efimenko-Naiditsch Match. Maybe these guys aren't in the super-duper-ultra-elite, but they're near 2700 and play fighting chess. Naiditsch has the early lead in this six game match, 1.5-.5.

NH Tournament, Round 2

The "old" guys had White today, but they were even less successful than the kids were yesterday! Four games were drawn, though White had an edge in a couple of games and a won position in van Wely-Nakamura. Ultimately, though, the only winner was David Howell, with Black, against a very slow moving Ljubomir Ljubojevic. The Rising Stars "team"* thus leads by one, with all the youngsters on 50% except for Nakamura, who is on +1 despite his somewhat shaky play thus far.

The tournament website is here, the games - with my notes - are here.

* I put "team" in scare quotes because it's in each team member's interest for his teammates to fail dismally: the top scorer on the Rising Stars team (at least if he finishes with a plus score) wins an automatic spot to the Amber rapid & blindfold tournament in early 2011.

This Week's ChessVideos Show: Viewer Questions

About once a month I reply on ChessVideos.tv to viewer questions, and that's the theme of this week's show. Somewhat unusually for this thread, I take a look at a number of classic games (including games by Capablanca and Fischer); more typically, there are questions on the openings - the Caro-Kann features prominently this time around.

To watch the show, you need only click here. The program is free (free registration is required) and will be available on-demand for the next month or so.