The Daily Update: News From All Over
(1) We start with the British Championship. In yesterday's round 10, Michael Adams beat Simon Williams to clinch clear first, and in the last round drew comfortably with Peter Wells to finish things off. In fact, he was even winning against Wells, but decided on a safety-first finish.
In this position, Adams (Black) is winning material, so it's up to Wells to prove that his counterplay against Black's slightly exposed king is enough. After 23.Rh5 Bxb1 24.Bxc4 (as played in the game), 24...Be4! seems to leave White with insufficient compensation. For instance:
(A) 25.d5!? and now Black must be a little careful. If 25...exd5??, then it's mate in three by 26.Ba6+, 27.Qb5+ and 28.Qb7#. If 25...Bd5?, then 26.Ba6+ is good for a draw, e.g. 26...Kb8 27.Qb5+ Ka8 28.Rxd5 exd5+ (good thing it's check!) 29.Kf1 c6 30.Qxc6+ Kb8 31.Qb5+ Ka8 (31...Kc7?? 32.Qb7+ Kd6 33.Bc5+ wins) 32.Qc6+ etc. But Black can win with 25...Rxd5! White can recoup the exchange, but after 26.Bxd5 there's no perpetual, Black's king is safe and he's two pawns up.
(B) 25.Rc5 is also sensible, getting the rook around Black's king before a move like ...Bd5 or ...Rd5 shuts it out on the kingside. It appears that the calm 25...c6 is good enough to put out White's fires, though: 26.Ba6+ Kd7 27.b5 Ke8! 28.bxc6 Qc7 29.Bb7 Rd5 and White's fun is at an end. Winning may not be easy, but Black can try forever while White suffers.
(C) 25.Ba6+ is the most direct path, but after 25...Bb7 26.Bxb7+ Kxb7 27.Rb5+ Kc8 28.Qa6+ Kd7 29.Qa4 Ke8! the king has scampered off to safety, as White lacks a meaningful discovered check.
Instead of going for the win, Adams preferred a riskless draw; understandable if a slight pity for those of us who wanted to see him put a cap on his demolition of the field. (Plus it threw away a nice batch of rating points, which is pretty important as he tries to get back into the Linares club.) The game concluded 24...Rd5? 25.Bxd5 exd5+ 26.Re5 Qd6 27.Re8+ Rxe8+ 28.Qxe8+ Kb7 29.Qb5+ Kc8 30.Qe8+ and drawn. His score of 9.5/11 was a great success, a rating points boon and left him a point and a half ahead of Nicholas Pert, who took clear second.
(2) Svidler-Nielsen. It only took Peter Heine Nielsen 16 games to get warmed up (6 rapid, 10 blitz), but on the final day of their four-day match (or on the second day of their second match, if you prefer) he finally came alive. On the first day of the blitz match they were forced to play 1.b3, on the second day they were allowed to play whatever they wanted to. (Shockingly, they never did play another 1.b3 game.) Nielsen came out firing, winning the first two games and three of the first four. Svidler managed to stop the bleeding, but was only able to even the session at 5-5. The blitz finished with Svidler the two-day winner 12-8, and if you merge those scores with the rapid games he won 16.5-9.5.
(3) Politiken Cup. Eight rounds (of 10) are finished, and Rodshtein and Ganguly lead with 7 points, half a point ahead of eight other players, including top seed Eljanov.
(4) Arctic Circle Challenge. After seven rounds (of 10), Bartosz Socko leads with an impressive 6.5 points. Manuel Leon Hoyos has 6, and six players, including Monika Socko - Bartosz's wife and the defending champ - are on 5.5. Top seed Loek van Wely is in the next group, with 5 points.
(5) U.S. Open. Tonight, all the sections merge. In the traditional, one round a day section, Alejandro Ramirez leads with a 6-0 score. There are no perfect scores in the 6-day, but in the 4-day, with one more quick round yet to be reported, Varuzhan Akobian is 5-0 thus far.
(6) Mainz Chess Festival. Unless you played in one of the simuls today, the interesting part of the festival starts tomorrow. In years past, it was a great big bash with open and invitational events in both Chess960 and rapid, but this year there's just an open rapid event. Still, it's very strong, with stars like Aronian, Grischuk, Shirov and Karjakin participating.
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