The Daily Update: Havana, Danzhou and Eindhoven Finish
As if by design, three big tournaments have simultaneously finished, just in time for the start of summer.
1. Starting with the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Vassily Ivanchuk has taken first, drawing quickly in the last round with Ian Nepomniachtchi. "Nepo" was the only player who could catch him, so while fans in search of a show may be disappointed, it's hard to criticize this from a pragmatic point of view.
Ivanchuk's score of 7/10 was good for a TPR of 2841, good enough to bring him back up to #13 in the world. Nepomniachtchi's performance was excellent as well: 6 points and a 2773 TPR, good enough to push his rating over 2700. (As a demonstration of his fine performance in this event, have a look here at his round 8 win over Short, with my comments.)
2. Danzhou: This elite all-Chinese event finished with a tie for first. For most of the tournament it was a two-man race between Bu Xiangzhi and the youngster Ding Liren, but in the last rounds it became a four-man race. In round 7, Bu was beaten by Wang Hao, who won again in round 8. Bu won in round 8 as well, and at that point he was half a point ahead Ding Liren, Wang Hao and Li Chao, who had won in round 7 to briefly tie for first.
In the last round Ding had Black against Ni Hua, who may have had the worst tournament of the super-GM phase of his career. Ni has been over 2700, but in this tournament his performance rating was only 2397. Nevertheless, he was solid enough in this game, and it was drawn. Wang Hao was also unable to win with Black, only managing a draw with Zhao Jun. Bu also had Black, and he too drew his game, again Hou Yifan. That left Li Chao, who took advantage of the White pieces to beat Yu Yangyi and tie for first, though Bu was the winner on tiebreaks.
(In sum: Bu Xiangzhi and Li Chao scored 6/9, Ding Liren and Wang Hao 5.5.)
It was a very exciting tournament, with only 21 draws in the 45 games, almost all of them hard-fought. This was billed as the "1st Annual" Danzhou tournament; let's hope that subsequent editions are as interesting as this one.
3. Eindhoven (Dutch Championship): Jan Smeets is the champion, thanks in good part to his win in the penultimate round over Erwin L'Ami (in 95 moves!) combined with Anish Giri's loss to a resurgent Loek van Wely. Giri came back to win in the last round, but he finished half a point behind. Smeets had 6.5/9, Giri 6, and Sipke Ernst was third with 5.5.
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