Wednesday 1 August 2012

Politiken Cup R6

All right, it started to be more serious in this years edition of Politiken Cup in Helsingör, Denmark.
I had two really hard opponents in Grandmasters from Greece and Russia, Halkias and Romanov.
I can not be dissatisfied with my results against them, because I simply did not deserved more than one draw.
In yesterday´s round, round number 5, I had white pieces and as soon as we finished development of pieces I lost all chances to fight for advantage.
Then, I took practical decision and started to play for a draw.
Halkias played technically without any creativity and I managed to equalise completely.
But, that was not all!

In the position when we exchanged queens I offered him a draw, but he decided to refuse my offer and to play on. It is true that his knight was slightly better than my bishop but closed nature of position and my pawn structure without any weaknesses did not guaranty him any reasonable chances to play for a win.
He did not made any progress and soon he found himself in time trouble.
What happened later was that I was cleaver enough to give him chance to play b6-b5 and win a pawn with help of the small combination, but than I got a perfect fortress.
My bishop from e5 protected everything, and he could not exchange it (I would take with f-pawn) because my king was always in quadrant of his passed pawn on f file.
As soon as he realise that he offered me the draw.
In today´s game against Romanov Evgeny (E2623) I had no problems in the opening whatsoever.
I got comfortable equality in position with hanging pawns, and I dare to say that I got favourable version of Tartakower-Makagonov-Bondarevski variation.
My first impression is that I should not exchange queens. However, I had reasonable chances to survive in position without queens. He had slight structural advantage and I had a bit more active pieces.
Then, I played for the combination, miscalculated something and all of sudden, it was all over.
It is fair to say that I played better in round 6 than in round 5. Chess is not always fair.
It is possible to play trough both games in chess viewer.
I had 4 points out of 6 possible, and that is not good enough.
If you thought that advantage of playing at home is not possible in chess, than you probably did not noticed Jonny Hector´s results in Politiken Cup.
Not just in 2012 but every year this Swedish Grandmaster who lives in Helsingör plays chess of his life in Politiken Cup.
This year, after round 6, he is leading the field, together with Bulgarian Grandmaster Ivan Cheparinov.
There are many players with 5 points and even more with 4,5.
Worth to notice is the game between Sandi Stojanovski, amateur player from Copenhagen (his native city is Sarajevo) and living chess legend Lajos Portish.
Stojanovski won in good style.
Four really interesting rounds are in front of us as many games between GM´s are going to be played.

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