2007/04/08

Shirov's (rapid) revenge in Spain

Easter day has come to an end. I’ve eaten enough eggs and I’m quite tired: that could also be as my glasses are broken and I have to watch my lap-top screen without them. For all these reasons I will be short (and I suspect you are happy for that:-) ), giving just some Easter news.
Alexei Shirov has taken his revenge. After last place in Wijk aan Zee the Spanish GM won the II Festival “Villa Cañada de Calatrava”, a rapid g/25 event which took place 6th-8th April. Shirov took first place on tie-break from Daniel Fridman, Ivan Sokolov and Boris Gelfand: they all finished undeafeted on 7.5/9. Many of the favourites, such as Anand, Mamedyarov, Ivanchuk, J. Polgar and Grischuk, scored half a point less. Shirov won the Fischer-random event, too, while Ivanchuk was first in the Blitz tournament. The total amount of Alexei’s prize has been more than 25.000 euros (about 33.000 $). Not bad for a three days job :-). Official site: http://www.koali.com/festival/index_en.html.
And what’s about the European championship? Five players are on top after round 6: GMs Volokitin, Volkov, Moiseenko, Tkachiev and surpising Romanian IM Jianu. 31 players have half a point less: Jakovenko, Nisipeanu, Eljanov and Almasi are amongst them. Official site: http://www.dresden2008.de/; you can find news and games on my Italian site, too (www.messaggeroscacchi.it).
Cheating has become a big preoccupation of the chess world in recent months. You can find an interesting article about this argument on “The New York Times”: click here to read it.
Well, that’s enough. And now here is a game to be seen from Euro champ, a crushing win by French GM Vladislav Tkachiev.

Tkachiev,V (2652) – Potkin,V (2593) [B14], Dresden 8.4.2007
1. c4 c6 2. e4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Bb4 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8. Qc2 Nc6 9. Bd3 Ba5 10. a3 Nxc3 11. bxc3 Nxd4 12. Nxd4 Qxd4 13. Bb5+ Bd7 14. O-O Qd5 15. c4 Qf5 16. Bxd7+ Kxd7 17. Qb3 b6 18. Rd1+ Ke7 19. a4 Rhd8 20. Ba3+ Kf6 21. Bd6 g5 22. Qb2+ Kg6 23. Ra3 g4 24. h3 h5 25. Rg3 f6 26. hxg4 hxg4 27. Rd4 Kf7 28. c5 Rg8 29. Rf4 Qg6 30. Rgxg4 Qh6 31. Qb5 Rad8 32. Qc6 1-0

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