This is my position from the eight round of Cannes festival 2013.
A lot depended on this position.
I was white against GM Safarli Elitaj E2638 and with a possible draw, I would play for my first GM norm in the last round.
Unfortunately I lost this position, and later on even the game in the last round, so I finished failed to finish in the top 10 despite that for the whole tournament except after round nine, I was in the top 10.
After my adventure on The French Riviera, this will be quick article, and more details in the next days....
The last time when I wrote something was after the sixth round when I had 4 points.
The very next day I played against French GM Degraeve Jean-Marc E2591, and succeeded to win the game.
Besides one mutual mistake at the end of the game I played very well.
I shall commentate that game on the blog.
My chance for a GM norm was realistic.
Unfortunately I got very hard opponent in the ninth round and I needed a draw and a win in the last round.
If I got someone else in ninth round (for example around 2450-2500) I would still need only a draw and a win in the last (or first win and then a draw).
However, I could not influence the pairings, and I played against Safarli.
I followed recommendation from one chessbase DVD, and got very bad position out of the opening.
I am very disappointed by what they (chessbase) are selling, but more about that in one of the next articles.
Later on I got the position from the diagram as I thought that it could be a draw.
If there are some readers who thought that it can be calculated easily, as it is pawn endgame, then they definitely do not understand chess.
In the pawn endgames in every position there are more candidate moves then in the complicated middlegames.
It is possible that every legal move is an candidate.
It means that it is probably not possible to calculate more then 3-4 moves ahead.
However, I lost this position.
In the last round which was played at the morning, I got IM Lekic Dusan.
I could not recharge my energy to play that game.
In one moment I hesitated to sacrifice an exchange and instead was forced to defend.
Later on, I did the big mistake, allowing exchange sacrifice (one move earlier I could simplify the position, and as computer shows probably take a draw), this time by my opponent.
He won the game.
After the last round, my opponent and I went for a long walking in Cannes.
Later on, I travelled to Nice and spend a two days there.
Yesterday, I visited Monaco and spend four or five hours there.
I will write about that in the next article.
However, despite these two defeats in the last two rounds, I got very big plus in Elo.
My plus in Elo is weaker only compared from tournament winner IM Akshayraj Kore from India, and equal to plus of IM Anastasia Savina and IM Aleksandar Donchenko (some players on the lower boards also did good plus, but they had coefficient 15 and much weaker opponents).
What does this means?
Well, the difference between my actual rating and my rating performance was the second biggest.
I have to say that the two days before the tournament in Cannes I defeated Swedish GM Lars Karlsson, and that I am in a good form.
The details what happened on the board will be presented in one of my next articles, and there will be also the reportage from The French Riviera, and some details from my game against Lars Karlsson.
Here is the final table in Cannes:
FINAL STANDING
Elo table and average rating
This is one picture from the critical eight round against GM Safarli Elitaj E2638.
Picture is taken from the facebook page of Cannes chess club.
It was a pleasure to play in such an extraordinary playing hall, and tournament was organised without slightest mistake.
Excellent work!
I played all around Europe, and only one tournament (119th Scottish Championship) is in the same category with this tournament in Cannes by my standards.
In the next articles I will write more about this.
No comments:
Post a Comment