Wednesday
Oct262011
SPICE Cup: Le Quang Liem Wins Last Round, Tournament
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 5:16PM
In a slightly tricky position, Leinier Dominguez missed a nice tactical shot against Le Quang Liem and lost in the final round of the 5th SPICE Cup in Lubbock, Texas. Had Dominguez won or even drawn the game - this was very possible - he would have been the winner. Instead, he tied for second with Georg Meier. In fourth place was Ray Robson, followed by Sebastien Feller (who was lucky not to be dead last) followed by Yuri Shulman.
The game can be replayed here (26...Bxf5? was the losing move; either 26...Re8 or 26...Qb5 would have maintained equality). (HT: J. Hall) There really isn't a normal tournament site, so I'd suggest this page as the place to start exploring.
Reader Comments (1)
Dominguez had a very frustrating finish - in addition to the losing blunder vs Le, he missed in the penultimate round a win in the knight endgame vs Feller (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1644143), which could have clinched at least shared first for him. Instead of 55.e6? White can win by 55.a7! c2 56.Nb3, and if Black tries 56...c5 57.e6 Kc6, there's the nice 58.Kg6! and Black cannot stop both of White's pawns (but not 58.Kf6? Kb7! and both pawns are under control, since 59.e7 is met by 59...Nd5+ & 60...Nxe7).