The Daily Update: Tournaments Everywhere
It's crazy how much chess is going on - interesting events too, even without any super-GM tournaments underway.
1. In the British Championship, Michael Adams was held to a second draw, and by a "mere" IM at that! Adam Hunt held with White, and has been caught in second by GMs Stephen Gordon and Simon Williams. They all have 6.5/9; Adams has 8. Two rounds remain.
2. Svidler-Nielsen, in blitz with 1.b3: Nielsen got off to a good start, drawing two and winning game three, but then he got steamrolled. Svidler won games 4 and 5, lost game 6, and then won the last four games of the day. As for 1.b3, it managed a 50% score, which seems about right to me. Tomorrow the players will honor chess by playing whatever openings they want, and I'm guessing 1.b3 won't have an encore performance.
3. Politiken Cup: The aforementioned match is part of the same festival, but referring only to the major open, 6 of 10 rounds have been played and there are four co-leaders: Georg Meier, Konstantin Landa, world #8 Pavel Eljanov and Maxim Rodshtein.
4. World Junior: None of the 2600s have lost, but five of the seven have been nicked for a draw after two rounds. It's a long tournament (13 rounds), so we'll revisit that event in a week or so.
5. Arctic Chess Challenge: After five of ten rounds, Bartosz Socko owns the only remaining perfect score. Five players, including Loek van Wely, are half a point behind.
6. Russia-China Match: This starts tomorrow. It's not as strong as it could be, but it's not bad, either.
7. U.S. Open: The tournament has multiple schedules, and only two of the three are underway. The 6-day schedule started yesterday and the 4-day starts tomorrow. Round five of the nine-day takes place tonight; so far, after four rounds, there are four perfect scores, including fellow Indiana resident Jim Dean. (No pressure Jim, no pressure.)
Reader Comments (7)
Adam Hunt's draw against Michael Adams was just enough to earn him a GM norm. Congratulations Adam!
Dennis, all:
If you check out the results page for the U.S. Open, you'll note my name a ways down. Semi-successful so far, rough start (first two rounds: NM Denis Strenzwilk and FM Sunil Weeramantry, 1/2 out of 2), but two wins since then against nonmasters. Should get a stronger pairing tonight!
G.
Crazy round at the World Junior championship today: On the top 15 boards, white scored +1=5-9. Most results were "according to rating", but two black wins were upsets by players rated about 150 points lower.
Hey Dennis, take a look at the Arctic Chess Challenge. Only four draws in 15 boards today!
I am rather disappointed that the two Sockos have not been paired against each other in the Arctic tournament. I wonder what would happen if Bartosz won. Would he have to sleep on the couch that night?
Last year Monika won and Bart was only 13th, even though he was the top seed. An upset, to be sure, but she does have the full GM title.
Actually, all Hunt had to do against Adams was turn up - he would have got a GM norm even if he'd lost.