Ongoing Events: The European Club Cup and the Unive Crown Group
For those who can't wait until November 9 for their next taste of super-GM chess, good news! There are two attractive events that will give you your fix.
The most impressive is the European Club Cup in Rhodes, Greece (anyone want to buy me a ticket to do some on-site reporting?), which includes players like Fabiano Caruana (does this guy ever take time off?), Hikaru Nakamura, Veselin Topalov, Sergey Karjakin, Leinier Dominguez, Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Peter Svidler, Alexander Morozevich, Peter Leko, Gata Kamsky and some other super-GMs too.
That tournament is a 7-rounder with tons of players; a much smaller six-round event is the Unive Crown Group in Hoogeveen, in the Netherlands. Only four players are involved in this double-round robin: Michael Adams, Wesley So, Loek van Wely and Robin van Kampen. In round 1, So beat van Wely and in a double surprise van Kampen beat Adams. It was an upset due to their relative ratings (not to mention Adams's advantage of being in his 40s!), but also because Adams played the French. There's nothing wrong with this opening, but as Adams has made a nice living over the years pummeling it with the Tarrasch it's odd to see him taking up the black cause. Maybe he felt that he had worked on beating it for so long he had some thoughts about the other side of the board, but van Kampen played 3.Nc3 and won.
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