Aeroflot Update, Round 6: Le Quang Liem Still Leads
Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 4:07PM ...but the pack is getting bigger. No one who started the day within half a point of Le Quang Liem gained any ground, but others did. Le himself was pretty disappointing, drawing with White against Kasimdzhanov in just 13 moves. Throwing away white games is not the way to Dortmund! Kobalia and Tomashevsky drew as well, but there was action on the next boards. Vitiugov beat Jiangchuan Zhou to swap places with his victim and close to within half a point, and Khismatullin beat Kurnosov brought him within half a point as well. So with three rounds to go in the Aeroflot Open, the top pairings for round 7 look like this:
Kobalia (4.5) - Le Quang Liem (5)
Kasimdzhanov (4.5) - Vitiugov (4.5)
Tomashevsky (4.5) - Khismatullin (4.5)
14 players are a further half a point behind, but Gata Kamsky is not one of them: he lost his second game of the tournament in round 6, and with the white pieces. Not an auspicious performance heading into the Candidates in early May!
Aeroflot 2011
Reader Comments (5)
Gata had this to say on his facebook page:
Gata Kamsky
lost today in another fantastic game. We both were finding very good moves, but I missed that after Nf5 (instead of Bd3) Bf8, I could play h3 with a very strong idea of Kh2 and suddenly it is white who will be attacking, and with an extra piece, black would have to be careful. After giving away my spanish bishop it was a lost cause. Amazing really, just one bad move and a huge difference.
When is the last time Kamsky had a good performance? I can only recall him getting mediocre results in international tourneys the last few years. I don't think he has a chance in the candidates.
Kamsky scored 0.5/3 against Asian players (Le Quang Liem, Ni Hua and Ding Liren). This doesn't mean much for the candidates matches, he would meet an Asian player (Anand) only after the final ,:) .
@:D I can't think of any either, except for his winning the World Cup in 2008, and in 2010 Reggio Emilia, the President's Cup (with Kramnik and Mamedyarov), the US Championship, the World Rapid Championship and the Baku Open. He also went 7/10 with a 2756 TPR at the Olympiad last year. Good enough?
Kamsky also tied for first in the Atlantic City international with Van Wely with 5/6. . Tied for first at 2010 Gibraltar with Alex Lenderman 7.5/10.