The Daily Update: Ponomariov Wins Dortmund; Plus Biel, The British Championship and Pamplona
Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 11:54PM There's quite a bit of chess news, and since I played in a tournament this weekend (I won) I've got some catching up to do!
1. Dortmund: Ruslan Ponomariov won, holding off his then-closest rivals Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in round 9 and Le Quang Liem in round 10. Mamedyarov played a crazy gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Be7 5.g4!?/?! 0-0 6.g5 Ne4 7.Qc2?!), but Ponomariov defended calmly and was the only player to enjoy any advantage in the game. Le posed more difficult problems in the last round, despite playing Black, but Ponomariov held on to become the deserved winner with 6.5/10. Le Quang Liem took clear second with 5.5 and demonstrated that he can play with even the world's best players.
Another half-point back, at 50%, were Mamedyarov and Vladimir Kramnik. Mamedyarov was the wild man of the event, winning three and losing three. Kramnik had an adventurous tournament as well, closing the tournament with a loss and a win. In a must-win situation in round 9, he trotted out the Pirc against Arkadij Naiditsch and then started sacrificing things. It wasn't such a bad try, really, but Naiditsch defended very well, took all the freebies and won. In round 10, he went back to playing his normal chess, and won pretty easily against Mamedyarov. (It must be said, however, that Mamedyarov's defense of the pawn-down ending was extremely odd. If the rook + knight + four kingside pawns vs. rook + bishop + three kingside pawns ending after move 25 is a win for Kramnik, it's at least not an easy one. But Mamedyarov handled it rather strangely and resigned on move 31.)
Finally, Naiditsch and Peter Leko brought up the rear with 4/10. For Naiditsch, such a result is more or less normal, and his TPR was within 13 points of his rating. For Leko, on the other hand, it was a poor performance, and only his last round win over Naiditsch prevented the tournament from being an unmitigated disaster. He'll be back, I'm sure.
Tomorrow, I might present some games from the last two rounds.
2. Biel: Round 6, on Saturday, was another lame round. Even though all the players are quite young, they're going it round after round like they have no energy. Four of the five games were drawn, and in 20, 20, 24 and 31 moves. Geez. Only Howell - Vachier-Lagrave went the distance, and was won by Black. On Sunday they had an official day off (how could the spectators tell?), and hopefully on Monday they'll offer the fans something a bit more interesting.
Fabiano Caruana leads with four points; Rodshtein, Vachier-Lagrave, Andreikin, So and Tomashevsky are half a point back.
3. British Championships: It would be more interesting if both Michael Adams and Nigel Short were playing, but at least Adams will participate. (Surprisingly, frankly, since he outranks the second seed by 160 points. Maybe he is doing this in part to build his rating back up, so he can reclaim his place with the Linares etc. crowd?) Play begins on Monday.
4. Pamplona (The Fourth AD San Juan International) features a strong field that includes Alexander Morozevich, near-2700 Laurent Fressinet and Anand second Radoslaw Wojtaszek. Round 3 is on Monday.
Reader Comments (6)
Congrats on the win Dennis!
Forget about those unimportant things like Dortmund and Biel - tell us more about your win!
:-)
Thanks for the congrats and inquiry. It was pleasant to win, but as I was the favorite it's not as noteworthy as one might wish. It's possible that a game or two from the event will make its way to a ChessVideos show in the next few weeks - we'll see!
Bravo Dennis! Looking forward to the games...
Dennis won the Indiana State Championship!!! Very nice Dennis congradulations.
I won the Indiana State Championship last September. The event this past weekend was something else altogether. But thanks!