chessblog

29 January 2011

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Congress 2011 – Short, Nadezhda in joint lead after four rounds

Chess blog for latest news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Victoria Cmilyte and Nadezhda Kosintseva

Hi everyone,

The news from the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2011 is that Nigel Short and Nadezhda Kosintseva are leading with a perfect score of 4.0 in four rounds. In fact, there was a four-way lead up to Round 3. But Nigel Short beat Deep Sengupta and Nadezhda Kosintseva beat Victoria Cmilyte. The two leaders would now face each other in the fifth round. Meanwhile, Vassily Ivanchuk also won a nice Rook-sac game against Viktor Erdos.

Here are the top standings after Round 4.

Rk.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1
1	GM	Short Nigel D	ENG	2658	4.0	3308
2	IM	Kosintseva Nadezhda	RUS	2552	4.0	3231
3	GM	Rapport Richard	HUN	2531	3.5	2914
4	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	UKR	2764	3.5	2873
5	GM	Fridman Daniel	GER	2655	3.5	2846
6	GM	Kotronias Vasilios	GRE	2599	3.5	2749
7	GM	Korchnoi Viktor	SUI	2544	3.0	2772
8	GM	Sengupta Deep	IND	2530	3.0	2748
9	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	IND	2690	3.0	2737
10	GM	Felgaer Ruben	ARG	2585	3.0	2728
11	GM	Zhu Chen	QAT	2495	3.0	2723
12	GM	Cmilyte Viktorija	LTU	2526	3.0	2722
13	GM	Adams Michael	ENG	2723	3.0	2709
14	GM	Buhmann Rainer	GER	2572	3.0	2706
15	GM	Kulaots Kaido	EST	2577	3.0	2683
16	GM	Roiz Michael	ISR	2649	3.0	2678
17	GM	Harikrishna Pentala	IND	2667	3.0	2674
18	GM	Akobian Varuzhan	USA	2618	3.0	2666
19	GM	Sandipan Chanda	IND	2641	3.0	2662
20	GM	Lafuente Pablo	ARG	2551	3.0	2635
21	GM	Gopal Geetha Narayanan	IND	2597	3.0	2634
	IM	Krush Irina	USA	2483	3.0	2634
23	GM	Caruana Fabiano	ITA	2721	3.0	2633
24	GM	Georgiev Kiril	BUL	2669	3.0	2616
	GM	Kacheishvili Giorgi	GEO	2585	3.0	2616
26	GM	Kosintseva Tatiana	RUS	2570	3.0	2568
27	IM	Zatonskih Anna	USA	2493	3.0	2564
28	GM	Ikonnikov Vyacheslav	RUS	2580	3.0	2555
29	GM	Kanep Meelis	EST	2531	3.0	2551
30	GM	Mikhalevski Victor	ISR	2579	3.0	2524
31		Vaarala Eric	SWE	2152	3.0	2508
32	GM	Lemos Damian	ARG	2553	3.0	2463
33	GM	Robson Ray	USA	2532	3.0	2446

From Alexandra Kosteniuk’s
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

28 January 2011

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Congress 2011 – Nadezhda, Cmilyte among leaders after 3 rounds

Chess blog for latest news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Don’t worry Mama, I got all the enemy pawns

Ana Cramling Bellon, 8-year-old daughter of GMs Pia Cramling and Juan-Manuel Bellon Lopez/www.gibraltarchesscongress.com

Hi everyone,

There are four players with a perfect score after three rounds at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Congress 2011 being played from Jan. 24 to Feb. 3, 2011, at the Caleta Hotel. There are 231 players in the Masters section: 53 grandmasters, three of whom are rated over the elite level of 2700, and 15 between 2600-2699. A special £10,000 prize will be awarded to the best womenn player. The tournament leaders on 3/3 are Nigel Short (England), Nadezhda Kosintseva (Russia), Victoria Cmilyte (Lithuania), Deep Sengupta (India).

Here are the top-20 board results.

Bo.	No.		Name	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	No.
1	23	GM	Felgaer Ruben	2	½ – ½	2	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	1
2	4	GM	Vallejo Pons Francisco	2	½ – ½	2	GM	Buhmann Rainer	29
3	11	GM	Short Nigel D	2	1 – 0	2	GM	Kosintseva Tatiana	31
4	28	GM	Kulaots Kaido	2	½ – ½	2	GM	Fridman Daniel	12
5	13	GM	Roiz Michael	2	½ – ½	2	GM	Rapport Richard	41
6	33	IM	Kosintseva Nadezhda	2	1 – 0	2	GM	Sandipan Chanda	14
7	17	GM	Berg Emanuel	2	0 – 1	2	GM	Cmilyte Viktorija	43
8	38	GM	Korchnoi Viktor	2	½ – ½	2	GM	Akobian Varuzhan	18
9	19	GM	Kotronias Vasilios	2	½ – ½	2	GM	Zhu Chen	51
10	42	GM	Sengupta Deep	2	1 – 0	2	GM	Gopal Geetha Narayanan	20
11	21	GM	Erdos Viktor	2	½ – ½	2	FM	Weber Tom	90
12	2	GM	Adams Michael	1½	1 – 0	1½	IM	Harika Dronavalli	45
13	44	GM	Speelman Jon S	1½	0 – 1	1½	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	6
14	55	IM	Krush Irina	1½	1 – 0	1½	GM	Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter	8
15	48	GM	Hoffmann Michael	1½	0 – 1	1½	GM	Harikrishna Pentala	10
16	69	IM	Sarkar Justin	1½	½ – ½	1½	GM	Ikonnikov Vyacheslav	25
17	75	GM	Bellon Lopez Juan Manuel	1½	0 – 1	1½	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	36
18	40	GM	Kanep Meelis	1½	½ – ½	1½	WGM	Pogonina Natalija	57
19	85		Tabatt Hendrik	1	0 – 1	1	GM	Caruana Fabiano	3
20	86	FM	Zaremba Andrie	1	0 – 1	1	GM	Bologan Viktor	5

John Saunders wrote in his interesting wrap-up report of Round 3:

WOMEN TO THE FORE

It was a particularly good day for the women players. As well as Victoria Cmilyte’s and Nadezhda Kosintseva’s wins against higher-rated GMs, Irina Krush beat former world championship finalist Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Nana Dzagnidze beat Juan-Manuel Bellón and Monica Calzetta beat Jean-Pierre Le Roux – which was incidentally Monica’s second GM scalp and Jean-Pierre’s second disaster against a lower-rated opponent. It wasn’t all one-way traffic, however, with former women’s world champion Antoaneta Stefanova falling victim to a much lower rated amateur player, Francisco Javier García Jiménez of Spain. Regrettably most of the women’s wins were rather long and technical, whereas this Spanish amateur’s win against Antoaneta was brisk and entertaining.

Here is a nice game from Round 3. You can run the moves in our pgnplayer or watch in flash below.

PGN: . d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Bg5 Nbd7 7. Qb3 c5 8. a3 Bxc3+ 9. Qxc3 c4 10. Qe3+ Qe7 11. Qxe7+ Kxe7 12. a4 h6 13. Bc1 a5 14. b3 cxb3 15. Nd2 b6 16. Ba3+ Kd8 17. e3 Ba6 18. Bxa6 Rxa6 19. Rb1 Ra8 20. Rxb3 Rc8 21. f3 Re8 22. Ke2 Rc6 23. Rc1 Rxc1 24. Bxc1 Re6 25. Kd3 Ne8 26. e4 Nc7 27. Ba3 Rc6 28. Nb1 dxe4+ 29. fxe4 Rf6 30. Rb2 Rf1 31. Nc3 Ne6 32. Bd6 f6 33. Rc2 Re1 34. Bg3 Ra1 35. Kc4 Nc7 36. Bxc7+ Kxc7 37. Kd5 Nf8 38. Nb5+ Kd8 39. Rc7 Rxa4 40. Rxg7 Ra2 41. Kd6 Re2 42. Rb7 Kc8 43. Rxb6 1-0

From Alexandra Kosteniuk’s
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

27 January 2011

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Congress 2011 – Watch how Korchnoi beats Caruana

Chess blog for latest news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

None other than the legendary Viktor Korchnoi all set to beat

his young Italian opponent Fabiano Caruana.

Hi everyone,

It’s just Round 2 at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Congress 2011 and 22 players are with a perfect score. Michael Adams is just a rank below with 1.5 points. You can access the official website here. The link to the live commentary is here.

Standings after Round 2

Rk.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1
1	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	UKR	2764	2.0	0
	GM	Vallejo Pons Francisco	ESP	2698	2.0	0
	GM	Short Nigel D	ENG	2658	2.0	0
	GM	Fridman Daniel	GER	2655	2.0	0
	GM	Roiz Michael	ISR	2649	2.0	0
	GM	Sandipan Chanda	IND	2641	2.0	0
	GM	Berg Emanuel	SWE	2627	2.0	0
	GM	Akobian Varuzhan	USA	2618	2.0	0
	GM	Kotronias Vasilios	GRE	2599	2.0	0
	GM	Gopal Geetha Narayanan	IND	2597	2.0	0
	GM	Erdos Viktor	HUN	2593	2.0	0
	GM	Felgaer Ruben	ARG	2585	2.0	0
	GM	Kulaots Kaido	EST	2577	2.0	0
	GM	Buhmann Rainer	GER	2572	2.0	0
	GM	Kosintseva Tatiana	RUS	2570	2.0	0
	IM	Kosintseva Nadezhda	RUS	2552	2.0	0
	GM	Korchnoi Viktor	SUI	2544	2.0	0
	GM	Rapport Richard	HUN	2531	2.0	0
	GM	Sengupta Deep	IND	2530	2.0	0
	GM	Cmilyte Viktorija	LTU	2526	2.0	0
	GM	Zhu Chen	QAT	2495	2.0	0
	FM	Weber Tom	LUX	2310	2.0	0

And the talented Pia Cramling on

her way to losing to the creative Nigel Short.

Here is the most-talked about game of the day. Enjoy.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk’s
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

25 January 2011

Watch live Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2011

Chess blog for latest news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everybody,

The first round has started at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Congress 2011. You can check the official website here and keep track of the updates on www.chessblog.com also.

“Black is OK!”, says Vassily Ivanchuk as Miss Gibraltar, Larissa Dalli, draws the black pieces for him in Round 1 on Tuesday 25 January.

Mr Edwin Reyes, Minister of Sport, with Miss Gibraltar, Larissa Dalli, at the opening ceremony of the 2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival

You can watch the live show including commentary from here. GMs Simon Williams and Stuart Conquest provides online commentary every afternoon, starting at 15:00 (GMT+1) from the specially-built commentary suite at the Caleta Hotel. You can watch, listen and even talk to Stuart during the afternoon! Use the chat facility in Livestream to chat with the commentators and other members of the online audience. Some evening events are also broadcast from the audio-visual suite at the congress, with interviews of players from the tournament, or players themselves giving talks on their games. Tune in to the afternoon broadcast for details of forthcoming talks.

Commentator Stuart Conquest with Jovanka Houska.

If you want to check a nice background report on this annual chess festival and if you want to find out why the monkeys like playing with Chess Queen in Gibraltar then look here.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk’s

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com

24 January 2011

2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival begins

Chess blog for latest news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Nadezhda Kosintseva, Stuart Conquest

and Tatiana Kosintseva in Gibraltar.

Hello everyone,

Another popular event of 2011 has begun – Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. Monday’s events saw a simul by the World Nos. 4 and 5 in women – Tatiana and Nadezda Kosintseva. The sisters won all their games except two draws against 22 players including an IM. You can keep track of the event here on www.chessblog.com or at the official website here. Rounds are set to begin.

Unfortunately, Women’s World Chess Champion 2010 Hou Yifan has had to pull out of the event at the last minute due to personal reasons. Still, we have a strong lineup, (including the Kosintseva sisters, Antoaneta Stefanova and others), which you can check here.

Stay tuned for more.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk’s
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

28 September 2010

Quick peek into top chess players’ January 2011 schedule

The Rock of Gibraltar

Hi Everybody,

Vassily Ivanchuk is going great guns at the 39th Chess Olympiad with a perfect score so far in seven rounds in the beautiful city of Khanty-Mansiysk. Then, the other day, Michael Adams beat World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen. Both these strong players will be in Gibraltar in 2010. And, they will be joined by several other strong chess ‘artists’ at the Tradewise Gibraltar Festival from January 24 to February 3, 2010.

Ivanchuk is one of three 2700+ rated players who have confirmed their participation in the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters. The others are Mickey Adams of England and Alexander Onischuk of USA. Mickey Adams returns as the defending Gibraltar Masters champion.

American grandmaster Alexander Onischuk is rated 2701 and is coming to Gibraltar partly to act as coach to one of the most exciting young American players to emerge in recent years, Ray Robson. Robson will only be 16 when he sits down to play in Gibraltar but he secured the norms he needed for his GM title before turning 15.

The women’s line-up already looks extremely strong. Heading the women’s contingent is women’s world no.2 Humpy Koneru of India as the top seed, with the strong Russian sisters Tatiana and Nadezhda Kosintseva next.

Also in the women’s line-up will be the 2010 and 2009 Gibtelecom Women’s winners, Natalia Zhukova and Nana Dzagnidze respectively, plus Viktorija Cmilyte, European Women’s Champion Pia Cramling and Ukrainian Olympiad gold medallist Inna Gaponenko.

Here are the various sections:

The Gibraltar Masters – Open to all. £109,100 in prizes. 25 January to 3 February 2011, a ten-round Swiss.

Challengers A: Under 2250. (24 to 28 January 2011) Prize Fund £5,150

Challengers B: Under 2250. (29 January to 2 February 2011) Prize Fund £5,150

Amateur A: Under 1800. (24 to 28 January 2011) Prize fund £2,300.

Amateur B: Under 1800. (29 January to 2 February 2011) Prize fund £2,300.

Each of the above four events is a five-round Swiss.

Evening events: £1,000.

Junior Congress: 5-6 February 2011

The event is hosted by the Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar.

You can find all the details here.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk’s

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

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