Archive for March 18th, 2009

I was going to hold the games from the Kenilworth Quads until after the tournament but have decided not to. Here are 4 games from last week in java-replay & PGN.

To wrap up the 2009 Kenilworth Championship, which was won last month by NM Yaacov Norowitz, here are :

• an updated 4th round replay page & zipped PGN, with 5 additional games
• the 5th round java-replays & PGN
• a ChessBase archive with 50 games from the event.

Thanks to :

• Michael Goeller… for donating many trophies & saving the club lots of money;
  
• Geoff McAuliffe… for a smoothly-run tournament & annotating at least 14 games;
• Ian Mangion… for providing notes to his final-round contest;
  
• all 26 participants… for helping to tie the club record for largest tournament.
  

The Awards Ceremony will be held this Thursday (3/19), before the 2nd round of the Kenilworth Quads.

French GM Marie Sebag actually did it: she outplayed the leading Zhao Xue to give the Istanbul Women’s Grand Prix a rousing finish. Especially since Koneru Humpy scored a crushing win against Antoaneta Stefanova, and Hou Yifan survived a tough game against Elina Danielian. So it’s Humpy, Hou and Zhao with 7.5/10 in the final round. All have the black pieces. Watch it on Playchess.

The tiebreaks at the European Championship in Budva, Montenegro, produced a final between GMs Evgeny Tomashevsky and Vladimir Malakhov, both from Russia. Tomashevsky won the first rapid game and lost the second, so that an Armageddon game was required. Malakhov had the black pieces and only needed to draw. In fact he had a winning position and then hung a rook! Take a look.

GM Zhao Xue came under considerable pressure in the Women’s Grand Prix in Turkey, with India’s Koneru Humpy pressing. But she managed to hold for 66 moves and remains in the lead. Hou Yifan drew against Marie Sebag, while Elina Danielian beat Martha Fierro to move into contention at equal third. The Turkish WIM Betül Yildiz scored her first victory, over Shen Yang. Round nine report.

The European Women’s Championship is taking place in St Petersburg, Russia, just a stone’s throw away from where top GM Peter Svidler lives. GM Robert Fontaine is producing video reports for the French chess magazine Europe Echecs there. The two got together for an indepth interview on Peter’s career, development, ambitions, Topalov vs Kamsky and Anand vs Topalov. Must watch and read.