Isle of Man, Final Roundup
Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 9:41PM
Dennis Monokroussos in 2018 Isle of Man, Arkadij Naiditsch, Radoslaw Wojtaszek

(Excuse the delay; it has been a very busy week.)

I assume most if not all of you already know what happened in the final round, but here goes (anyway). Arkadij Naiditsch and Radoslaw Wojtaszek entered the last round of the Isle of Man International tied for first and paired for all the marbles. The result was a draw, but none of the four players who could have caught up managed to do so. Two of them, Jeffery Xiong and Gawain Jones, were paired with each other, and their game finished in a draw. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave fared even worse, losing (albeit with the black pieces) to Alexander Grischuk, who entered the round a further half a point behind, so he didn't catch the leaders. Wang Hao was the last candidate, but he couldn't beat Viswanathan Anand with the white pieces, so he too finished tied for third.

Others tying for third with Xiong, Jones, Grischuk, and Wang Hao were Vladimir Kramnik (defeating his old rival Alexei Shirov, 20 years after their infamous Candidates match in Cazorla), Hikaru Nakamura (defeating Pavel Eljanov), and Baskaran Adhiban (defeating Michael Adams, and with Black).

Below them, 19 players were in the next group, with 6/9, including MVL and Anand, Anish Giri, Sergey Karjakin, and some other 2700s and near-2700s. The lowest-rated player in the tie - by far - was IM Alina Kashlinskaya; more on her achievement later.

Once all the normal games were finished, Wojtaszek and Naiditsch had a blitz playoff. Wojtaszek had White in the first game and found himself down two pawns for nothing, but when he eventually managed to scare up some play on the kingside Naiditsch played badly and wound up lost. But this was not the end, either: now Naiditsch worked up some counterplay against his opponent's king, and could have won. In time trouble he again went awry, and Wojtaszek finally managed to win the game.

In game 2 Wojtaszek goofed up the opening, and Naiditsch's excellent play netted him a completely won game. With two ways to cash in and win easily, however, he goofed it up, and then a long ending ensued in which he wasn't always better. But just when it seemed that Wojtaszek was about to escape with a draw, Naiditsch found some nice resources, and reeled in the point to force an Armageddon game.

Wojtaszek had White and 5 minutes to Naiditsch's 4 minutes and draw odds. Often Black tries to play solidly in such circumstances, but that's not Naiditsch's style. Unfortunately, his attempt to play sharply resulted in positional suicide, and Wojtaszek won easily and cleanly.

The players mostly split the prize money (£37,500 each), with Wojtaszek getting the tournament title and a small extra payday (£500) for winning the playoff. He picked up 12 points from the tournament and 22 points for his play in this event and the Olympiad. It was a good month for him. Better still, remember Alina Kashlinskaya, mentioned above? That's his wife. She finished the tournament with wins over two 2600s, Rinat Jumabayev and Sam Sevian - the latter on her 25th birthday. She earned a GM norm in the tournament, gained 30 rating points, and won £7,000 for the best result among the women, too. In addition to her heroics in the last two rounds, she began the tournament by drawing with Giri and Kramnik - what a fantastic result!

All the Wojtaszek-Naiditsch games, Kashlinskaya's final game, and as a bonus a remarkable game between Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa - Teja Ravi (HT: Jaideep Unudurti), can be replayed here.

Article originally appeared on The Chess Mind (http://www.thechessmind.net/).
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