Archive for August 17th, 2009

Entering into the final round, Zoltan Almasi and Ferenc Berkes held the joint lead, a half-point ahead of their nearest competitor, Csaba Balogh. After an indecisive final round, with all games drawn, Almasi and Berkes emerged as the tournament’s top finishers. Unfortunately, for Berkes, with a superior Sonneborn Berger score, Almasi takes home the title.

Round seven was a slugfest, with six decisive games to one draw. Round eight was the other way around: six draws to one decisive game. The outcome: Vassily Ivanchuk and Peter Leko are in the lead with 5.5/8 points, followed by Rustam Kasimdzhanov half a point behind. We bring you a report of both rounds and once again some very insightful pictures by Arman Karakhanyan.

In round eight of the Howard Staunton Memorial the Dutch players struck a fearsome blow: a 1.5-3.5 victory to equalise their overall score against the Brits. But in round nine the island inhabitants hit back with a 4:1 win that put them in the overall 24-21 lead. With one round to go. In individual scores Nigel Short leads with 7.0/9, two points in front of his nearest rivals. Report by Steve Giddins.

Entering into a free day, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave enjoyed a half-point cushion in accompaniment with his sole lead. With half his games ending in sixteen move draws, however, one wonders whether it is a matter of time before he is overtaken. Tkachiev has already had his opportunity to provide resistance, and now only Laurent Fressinet truly stands between Maxime and the title.

Innovations after move 20? There is no need to wait that long.
In Aronian-Kamsky, Jermuk 2009, the Armenian came up with his
innovation on move five! And five moves later he basically had a
winning position. What the bizarre opening moves 1.c4 g6 2.e4 e5
3.d4 have to do with the Grünfeld Defence was explained by Mihail Marin in CBM
126
(buy it now!); we reproduce here a shortened version of his article. Kamsky certainly
hadn’t had a look at Marin’s analysis – you better do it!
Aronian-Kamsky with annotations
Mihail Marin on the variation 1.c4 g6 2.e4 e5 3.d4