The Daily Update: New, Ongoing and Forthcoming Events, Plus Two Great Performances
Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 4:13PM The chess calendar is as busy as ever, with a number of noteworthy events underway.
1. Saratov. The Governor's Cup is about 2/3 finished, and it's a one-man show starring Alexander Morozevich. After the draw with Alexei Shirov in round 6 he "bounced back" to defeat Evgeny Alekseev in round 7. His six points gives him a 3010 TPR, a two point lead over the field, and ninth place on the live rating list. (If he keeps this up for the remaining four rounds, he might even make it to #7 on the list.)
2. Women's Grand Prix in Nalchik. In a way even more impressive is the performance of Zhao Xue in Nalchik. She too has six points and a two point lead over her closest competitors, in her case it's 6/6. The TPR calculations on perfect scores are dubious, but even on the minimum "realistic" approach (based on extrapolating the TPRs from lower scores) her performance is over 2900. Can she maintain it over the last five rounds?
3. Magistral Casino Barcelona. This isn't an elite event, though some fine players are participating, but it's worth a mention since the apparently unretired Yasser Seirawan is not only participating but off to an early lead with 2.5/3 in this nine(! - an odd number) man tournament.
4. Bundesliga. The 2011/12 season of the Bundesliga - the strongest chess nobody sees - starts this weekend. Play began on Friday and continues through Sunday with stars like Peter Svidler, Michael Adams, Francisco Vallejo, Etienne Bacrot (just one day after Poikovsky! Then again, he's probably well-rested after that tournament), Vugar Gashimov and many more.
5. Unive Crown Group. This is a small but strong double-round robin starting tomorrow. The four players are Vladimir Kramnik, Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Judit Polgar - not bad at all!
Kramnik, Morozevich, Seirawan, Zhao Xue
Reader Comments (4)
As to the Barcelona tournament, I remember reading somewhere that one of the participants had a car accident on his way to the airport and was forced to withdraw, hence the odd nine. As far as I remember, the news piece said he himself was all right and only the car got totalled.
Some additions:
Barcelona - indeed, the tenth player should have been Iturrizaga. He is still mentioned as a participant (jugador) on the tournament homepage, but in the calendar his name is replaced by "descansa" (free round?). Maybe the presence of Kevin Spraggett is worthwhile mentioning. I thought he was also sort of retired, but looking at his Elo pages he still plays many minor events - all in France, Spain and Portugal. And another unretired player from the Netherlands (country of residence) was invited after winning an open in the same town: Matthew Sadler. He had to decline because he couldn't get holidays from his bread and butter job. He will play Tata Steel C in January - actually the organisers are a bit embarassed because he would (now) better fit in the B group. But they invited him, and he accepted in July. In the meantime, the field of the B group is complete.
Bundesliga - what you didn't know (only a few insiders knew) when posting yesterday: Aronian also joined the action today. While you don't really care about team results, his team from Berlin beat the big favorite from Bremen 6-2, thanks to Aronian's win against Fressinet and a few upsets. One was Gashimov losing against Aronian's student Melkumyan on board 1.
[DM: His student, really?]
[His student, really?]
Perhaps protégé is the right word. In the recent Bilbao tournament, Melkumyan replaced Sargisian as Aronian's second. Aronian speaks about their current cooperation in the following video by Macauley Peterson - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE057wOGqoE (starting from about 1:15).
Speaking of Gashimov's games at the Bundesliga, his 2nd round game against Kempinski (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1643401) featured a very entertaining moment, when he played 22.Qa6 - taking the queen leads to a spectacular mate, involving consecutive double checks with different bishops: 22...bxa6 23.Bxa6+ Kc7 24.Bf4+ Qd6 25.Rb7+ Kc8 26.Rxc6+! Qxc6 27.Rc7+ Kb8 28.Rc8#. However, in the cold light of computer analysis it turns out to be an objectively weak move, since it allows Black a spectacular resource of his own: 22...Bc3+!! 23.bxc3 (capturing with Rb3 allows Black to take the queen; capturing with Rc1 allows mate on d1) 23...Ne5! (now that the c-file is blocked, black threatens perpetual with 24...Nf3+ 25.Ke2 Ng1+ etc.) and White doesn't have anything better than 24.Bb5 bxa6 25.Bxd7+ Kxd7 with what seems to be some advantage, but far from a clear win. The best move, instead, would have been the more prosaic 22.Qa4! with the lethal threat of Ba6, in addition to that of taking on a7; and Gashimov indeed played it in the next move and won quickly, after Black missed his chance.
I had taken the info about Melkumyan being Aronian's student from an article of the "Schachfreunde Berlin" club homepage, announcing changes to the team for the (then coming, now ongoing) season:
"Dirk Poldauf, a long-term "chess friend, met his neighbor Levon - both live in Berlin just a few kilometers away from each other - for a glass of wine. They talked about the Bundesliga and the fact that Aronian's "Schüler" [student or maybe pupil] was looking for a Bundesliga club, preferably board 1. And Levon himself could also play again."
The deal was sealed, with Melkumyan on board 1 and Aronian on board 2. Aronian might only play a few key matches, maybe just one more against Baden-Baden when he might face one of the first four players Dennis mentioned or even Magnus Carlsen (if he and Anand both show up). With his surprise appearance, Berlin also disrupted the opponents' preparation - and obviously (cf. above) he didn't have to fly in all the way from Armenia.