The Daily Update: Poikovsky Finishes, Plus Havana, Danzhou, and Medias

1. The Karpov tournament in Poikovsky finished today, and Sergey Karjakin won on tiebreak over Viktor Bologan. Coming into the last round, they were tied for first, along with Dmitry Jakovenko and Nikita Vitiugov. Remarkably, all four had White, too. Vitiugov didn't come very close, though: he drew Jobava in 17 moves. Jakovenko pushed longer, but didn't manage to beat Rublevsky. But both Karjakin and Bologan won, over Sutovsky and Motylev respectively. Ironically, both won endings that should have been drawn, and that didn't appear to be terribly difficult to hold, either. (Of course, what looks - and may in fact be - easy to draw to a well-rested, tension-free commentator may not be so easy at the end of a long game at the end of a tournament.)

2. Vassily Ivanchuk continues to lead the Capablanca Memorial in Havana. He drew again today and now has 3/4; Nigel Short became the first player other than Ivanchuk to win a game, and he's now back on 50%. (English-language coverage here.)

3. In Danzhou, Bu Xiangzhi beat Ding Liren in round 3 to replace him as the leader. He (Bu) has 2.5/3, Ding and Wang Hao have 2 points in this very strong all-Chinese tournament. (Live games here.)

4. Finally, the King's Tournament in Medias, Romania, starts tomorrow (Monday). Here are the first round pairings:

Gelfand - Wang Yue

Nisipeanu - Radjabov

Carlsen - Ponomariov

Play starts at 2:30 p.m. CET/8:30 a.m. ET. It will be nice to see Carlsen in action again.

The Daily Update: Poikovsky, Havana, Danzhou

The Karpov tournament in Poikovsky has taken a surprising turn. Going into round 9 (of 11), Jakovenko led by half a point over Karjakin and a point over Vitiugov and Bologan. Considering that Jakovenko was due to play Onischuk, who was winless and at -1, it was hard to imagine that he would lose - but he did. Karjakin drew with Rublevsky, while Vitiugov and Bologan both won (over Sutovsky and Naiditsch respectively, in both cases with Black!). So those four players now lead with 6/10 going into the last round. While the problem of lame draws has continued (Jobava-Sokolov went 15 moves and Motylev-Riazantsev just 22), there have also been some very exciting games as well and the overall fighting spirit has increased over the last several rounds.

At the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, one streak continued and another ended. In games not involving Ivanchuk, the streak of all drawn games continues: six in a row. The streak of Ivanchuk victories stopped at two, however, as he only managed to draw against Dominguez. Ivanchuk thus leads with 2.5/3, a point clear of Dominguez, Bruzon and Nepomniachtchi.

In Danzhou, round 3 is underway (Ding Liren - Bu Xiangzhi looks pretty crazy); after two completed rounds Ding Liren leads with 2/2, half a point ahead of Li Chao and Bu Xiangzhi.

There are some other interesting events going on now too, but rather than duplicate TWIC's front page I'll send you there to see for yourself!

Jaideep Interviews Anand, Part 3

The final installment of the interview is here, and well worth the few minutes to read.

This Week's ChessVideos Show: Viewer Games

About once every month or so, I try to go through the collection of games submitted by the viewers over at ChessVideos.tv. That's the subject of this week's show, which includes a King's Indian, an Old Indian, a Ruy Lopez, a Scotch, a King's Indian Attack and more. Of course it wasn't just openings that were covered, but that at least gives you some idea of what you'll see.

The show, which you can access here, is free (free registration required, if you haven't registered already), and will be available on-demand for the next month or so.

New and Upcoming Events: Danzhou, Bazna

In Danzhou, China, a very strong tournament started yesterday. Indeed, it looks like the participants in the national championship just took a few days off, and then reconvened here: Wang Hao, Bu Xiangzhi, Ni Hua, Hou Yifan, Ding Liren, etc. The last two were the only winners in round 1; round 2 is underway as I write this. More here; live games here.

What about Wang Yue? He didn't play in the Chinese Championship because he was in Astrakhan, and he's not playing in Danzhou on account of the Bazna tournament starting on Monday. The lineup for this six player, double round-robin tournament is impressive:

Magnus Carlsen (2813)

Boris Gelfand (2750)

Wang Yue (2749)

Teimour Radjabov (2740)

Ruslan Ponomariov (2737)

Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (2661)

The second and third seeds can be a bit dull, at least with Black, but seeds 1, 3 and 4 are good fighters while Nisipeanu's presence as the putative rabbit should also liven things up.

The Daily Update: Poikovsky and Havana

Briefly:

The Karpov tournament in Poikovsky again saw three wins, but this flurry of excitement is somewhat counterbalanced by the 15- and 17-move draws in the Jakovenko-Riazantsev and Naiditsch-Motylev games, (dis-)respectively. Bologan beat Jobava, Vitiugov beat Rublevsky (and very quickly) and Sutovsky won with Black against Sokolov.

Thus Jakovenko, with 6/9, maintains his half-point lead over Karjakin with two rounds to go; Bologan, Riazantsev, Vitiugov and Sutovsky are a further half a point behind.

At the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba, there were again two draws complemented by an Ivanchuk win, this time over Alekseev. Go Chuky!

Jaideep Interviews Anand, Part 2

Here. Part 1 of this excellent interview is here.

White to Move and Win? An Update

On Tuesday I presented this position, from Sutovsky - Jobava from round 6 of the ongoing Poikovsky tournament. It's White to move:

There are at least three reasonable moves for White to choose from: 43.Bxf5, which was chosen in the game; 43.Rxf5, which was suggested by some commentators; and my own suggestion of 43.c6. The first and last moves win, and I have nothing too special to add to my earlier commentary. About 43.Rxf5, however, GM Mikhail Golubev (writing in Chess Today) was wrong (and I - and all of you, too, apparently - believed him).

He thought, quite plausibly, that Black had a fortress draw after 43...exf5 44.Bxf5+ g6 45.c6 Rh5 46.c7 Rxf5 48.c8Q Kg7. It looks like Black's rook can just shuttle back and forth from f5 to h5 and back again, and there's no room behind the Black king to drive him out.

This is not so. The problem, as the grandmasterly trio of Alex Baburin, Jacob Aagaard and Karsten Mueller have noted (again on Chess Today - see what you're missing?), is twofold. First of all, Black's rook must sometimes drop back to a square like f7 (rather than going sideways to h5) to keep the king from getting pushed out. If there were no a-pawns, that wouldn't be a problem: it would still be a draw. With a-pawns, however, we quickly see point number two: if the rook quits the 5th rank, Black's a-pawn will disappear. There is no fortress.

You might want to work out the details for yourself; if not, or if you want to check your results with the GM trio, have a look here.

Rybka 4: Son of Fischer?

In a recent issue of Chess Today, a gentleman named Albert Silver submitted a game between two engines he was testing, Rybka 4 and the strong but anonymous "Engine X". While it went unremarked upon by Mr. Silver and the Chess Today staff, the ending bears an incredible resemblance to the super-famous fourth game of the Fischer-Taimanov match back in 1971. See for yourself, here. Once Engine X gets saddled with a second pawn triangle after move 46, the resemblance is uncanny - compare for instance the position after move 55 with that after move 61 in the Fischer game.

(They are so alike - mirror images except for one not-too-important pawn - that I initially wondered if Silver was playing some sort of practical joke. But who would do a thing like that? [Don't answer that.])

The Daily Update: Poikovsky, Round 8 and Havana, Round 1

The Karpov tournament in Poikovsky is getting into the homestretch, and the players are finally picking up the pace. Round 8 had three winners - all with Black. Riazantsev led and had White against Karjakin, but lost, putting the latter in clear second with 5/8. He would have been tied for first, but Jakovenko won with Black against Motylev (and in just 25 moves); he has 5.5 points. The third winner was Sokolov, who climbed out of the cellar with a win against Rublevsky. Rublevsky has now taken his place there with three rounds to go.

Meanwhile, at the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Ivanchuk was the day's sole winner. Like the Poikovskites, he too won with Black, beating Short in a lively contest with lots of material imbalances. (Replayable here, but without notes.) Dominguez - Bruzon was a long and very hard-fought battle between Cuba's two best players, while Nepomniachtchi - Alekseev was less interesting.