Isle of Man: Four Lead After Five Rounds
The perfect scores are no more at the Isle of Man International after today's draw between Wang Hao and Arkadij Naiditsch. There were a lot of draws on the top boards, but two players caught up: Jeffery Xiong, who defeated Richard Rapport with Black in a very interesting game; and Abhijeet Gupta, who outplayed his younger and higher-rated compatriot (and birthday boy) Vidit Gujrathi with White. They lead a group of seven four-pointers including Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, and Sergey Karjakin - the latter winning the very rare two knights vs. pawn ending against Sam Sevian. 27 players are another half a point behind, including 11 players rated over 2700. In fact, the top seven seeds, excluding third-seed MVL, are in that score group.
Here are the leading pairings for round 6:
- Xiong (4.5) - Wang Hao (4.5)
- Nakamura (4) - Gupta (4.5)
- Jumabayev (4) - Vachier-Lagrave (4)
- Parligras (4) - Karjakin (4)
- Wojtaszek (4) - Svane (4)
Apparently Naiditsch is taking a bye. Here are the three games mentioned above.
Reader Comments (1)
For what it's worth, if I was the stronger side in a K & 2N vs K & P ending, I would just automatically offer my opponent a draw. There is not only no chance in hell I'd be able to win that ending, but it probably wouldn't be worth the effort, especially if one takes into account the "tournament fatigue" factor.
[DM: That would be a mistake. You're forgetting that both players have a job to do. Yes, yours is to win, but your opponent's is to avoid losing - and that's not as easy as it seems. Sevian is a very strong grandmaster, but he didn't put up much of a fight. Don't expect your opponents to do any better!]