Caruana Wins The Reyjkavik Open...Barely
It wasn't the best way to finish the tournament, but Fabiano Caruana's lucky last round draw with Hou Yifan proved sufficient to take clear first at the Reykjavik Open with 7.5/9. Several players had a chance to catch him, but none of those who could, did. Seven players finished half a point behind: (in tiebreak order) Ivan Sokolov, David Navara, Gawain Jones, Boris Avrukh, Hou Yifan, Sebastien Maze and Henrik Danielsen.
To say that Caruana was lucky wasn't sour grapes (I'm happy for him to succeed) or to deny that strong players make their own luck. Rather, he was lucky because Hou missed several wins, and not under pressure from Caruana. Worse still, the third winning chance came right after the time control, when she had two winning continuations. Still, it was another fine result for the women's world champion, who is showing herself to be a real force to be reckoned with and seems destined for 2700dom.
Click here for a look at the aforementioned Hou Yifan-Caruana game - there are some beautiful variations!
Reader Comments (3)
I was following the Hou Yifan game and am pleased to say I picked 41.Nac4 – I think she had a fair old think too so a bit odd she didn't play it as it's not really hard.
Caruana overlooked 25.Qb4 and didn't even considered 25...Nxg2. I don't blame him !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQZ0iFrdkg4
I see Irina Krush faired well, tied with other IMs at 6.0 for top score among non-GMs. Does anyone know if she got a GM norm and if so, by how much?
[DM: Not even close. You can click on her name and see her TPR. For a GM norm, assuming the other conditions are met (e.g. the requisite number of GMs [not met: you need three, and she only played two], number of players from a different federation [easily met]), a player has to get a 2600 performance rating. Hers was 2457, slightly below her 2461 rating.]