Tuesday 14 May 2013

Norway Chess 2013 and EICC in Legnica 2013

In the first super tournament on Norwegian ground reached it´s last third part.
The middle of the tournament was very interesting and the number of high quality games is very high.
At the same time, an army of strong Grandmasters are fighting for their place in The World Cup in European Individual Chess Championship in Polish town of Legnica.


Norway Chess 2013



In the fourth round I was deeply impressed by performance of Sergei Karjakin who won with black pieces against World number two, Levon Aronian.
It that moment he had 4 out of 4, and as Norwegian star Magnus Carlsen played only four draws, everybody could assume that the fight for the first place is practically over.
In the same round Nakamura won against Anand with black pieces, in the game filled by energy, and most probably the best game in the tournament so far.

In the following fifth round, Krajakin played against Carlsen with White pieces.
He got an advantage and in that moment only two results was possible. However, Karjakin did not find the way to stabilise his extra pawn, and started to play very strange moves (Kh2).
It did not took long for Carlsen and we could see the real twist.
By confident play Carlsen gave the tournament a new life.

Today, Karjakin was black against World Champion, Anand, but in the long battle he survived, so the most critical moment for him is over.
On the contrary, we can see that Carlsen is in a full gear.

This is the position which he reached today against Radjabov.
There is no doubt that with the best play this position should be a draw, but then why bother and play chess at all, because from the beginning with the best play it is only a draw?!
Well, maybe someone can be tricked by reduced material, and false simplicity of the position, and of course false evaluation of the chess engines.
White is of course better, and it is only the question of degree.
If we add that exactly in this type of the positions Carlsen managing to develop his full potential, then we can imagine that Radjavom faced the real problems here.
At the end Carlsen won, and he is only half a point behind Karjakin.
He have a game against Hammer, and without writing off somebody, it is a real advantage in the last three rounds.
So far I think that Nakamura and Svidler played really good chess.
Aronian is on his high level, and has a chances to fight for the first place.

Other details can be seen in the table:


After round 6:
 Players 12345678910TotalABC
1KARJAKIN SergeyRUS 0 1½  1114,51142
2CARLSEN MagnusNOR1 ½ ½½½1  41321
3NAKAMURA HikaruUSA ½ 01½½ 1 3,59,7521
4ARONIAN LevonARM0 1 ½½ ½ 13,59,2520
5ANAND ViswanathanIND½½0½ ½1   31010
6SVIDLER PeterRUS ½½½½   0138,510
7TOPALOV VeselinBUL ½½ 0  ½½½2,56,7500
8RADJABOV TeimourAZE00 ½  ½ ½12,55,510
9WANG HaoCHN0 0  1½½ 025,510
10HAMMER Jon LudvigNOR0  0 0½01 1,53,2510



EICC in Legnica Poland 2013


In Legnica, players are approaching last two rounds.
We can already conclude that the players on the first three places practically secured their places in The World Cup.
GM Nils Grandelius lost all chances for such thing.
In today´s game against GM Tomashevsky, he lost with Black pieces and his chances vanished.

Nils Grandelius "....I was unlucky today. I can be satisfied with my game, but I lost because I missed Qd4. This was actually an old analyse of him....."

I can not to not notice complete domination of the players from former eastern block.
In the first 30 players, only two names are not from it.
Vallejo Pons and Ragger Markus are only exceptions.
GM Moiseenko is still leading, with only two followers, and 16 players with a whole point behind him.
Here is the table after 9 rounds with a players who scored 6,5 or more points:


Rank after Round 9

Rk. NameFEDRtgPts. TB1  TB2  TB3  TB4 RpKrtg+/-
1
GMMOISEENKO AlexanderUKR26987.5262747.047.5627751018.1
2
GMALEKSEEV EvgenyRUS27007.0263148.052.0528351014.7
3
GMLUPULESCU ConstantinROU26347.0260546.050.5528011019.1
4
GMKOROBOV AntonUKR27056.5262045.548.552772108.0
5
GMLYSYJ IgorRUS26416.5261745.549.5427611014.5
6
GMBELIAVSKY Alexander GSLO26286.5261345.549.5427551015.7
7
GMVALLEJO PONS FranciscoESP26956.5260746.050.542758107.6
8
GMMOVSESIAN SergeiARM26936.5260442.545.542756107.4
9
GMARESHCHENKO AlexanderUKR27096.5260347.051.052757105.9
10
GMDREEV AlekseyRUS26546.5259945.049.5427471011.1
11
GMBALOGH CsabaHUN26446.5257743.047.042718107.6
12
GMNAVARA DavidCZE26976.5257741.545.042733104.6
13
IMKOVALEV VladislavBLR25236.5257142.545.0526731021.1
14
GMHRACEK ZbynekCZE26286.5256943.047.5427141010.9
15
GMLAZNICKA ViktorCZE26796.5255942.546.542715104.6
16
GMZHIGALKO AndreyBLR26036.5255740.043.0526991012.3
17
GMISTRATESCU AndreiFRA26516.5254140.544.542694105.4
18
GMMELKUMYAN HrantARM26226.5252740.544.552675106.8
19
GMMAMEDOV NidjatAZE26026.5247037.541.562620103.1



...and the pairings for the first 10 boards:


Pairings/Results

Round 10 on 2013/05/15 at 15:00

Bo.No. NameRtgPts.ResultPts.NameRtg No.
113
GMMOISEENKO Alexander2698GMKOROBOV Anton2705
7
254
GMLUPULESCU Constantin263477GMALEKSEEV Evgeny2700
11
35
GMARESHCHENKO Alexander2709GMBELIAVSKY Alexander G2628
56
414
GMNAVARA David2697GMLYSYJ Igor2641
46
545
GMBALOGH Csaba2644GMVALLEJO PONS Francisco2695
16
657
GMHRACEK Zbynek2628GMMOVSESIAN Sergei2693
17
720
GMLAZNICKA Viktor2679IMKOVALEV Vladislav2523
135
835
GMDREEV Aleksey2654GMMELKUMYAN Hrant2622
62
978
GMMAMEDOV Nidjat2602GMISTRATESCU Andrei2651
39
108
GMELJANOV Pavel27026GMZHIGALKO Andrey2603
77

1 comment: