Arctic Chess Challenge - Day seven in pictures and text
Here you see the bridge from the Island to the mainland - it has become a symbol of Tromsø. At your right hand you see The Arctic Cathedral at the mainland. They are both from the 60's and all tourists take picture's of them. As you see it became cloudy on day 7 of Arctic Chess Challenge - but the temperature's was fine, even though they fell from 25 to 20 degrees. The weather forecast predicts acceptable weather for the big happening - the Barbecue Party at Saturday!
The 7th round has just started in the Arctic Hall of Scandic Hotel, Tromsø. We got a round with all the action we are used to. Top seed Bartosz Socko just escaped, and even won, another lost position versus a Norwegian untitled. This time it was 7th times North Norwegian Champion Pål Røyset who got a winning position - but at move 40 he pressed the clock with 1 minute left with the move 39.Bb4?. It threw a large part of the advantage away, and the game turned gradually all around till the GM won as so often happens.
Another Norwegian got his GM-scalp when young Nicolai Getz beat GM Heikki Westerinen - those teenagers always make a heavy impact on the titled players during Arctic Chess Challenge! The IMs continue to over perform the GMs and I'm not only thinking of Robson. Everything is normal by now - at least for chess in the Arctic! IM Marijan Petrov from Bulgaria and IM Luca Shytaj from Italy both won in this round and they both have clearly over 2600+ performances and Luca already met 5 titled players while Petrov meets his 5th Saturday. What else is normal? Oh, a direct Kings attack! In all these Super Elite tournaments you don't see it as often as you like - the 2700+ tends to feel danger and play necessary prophylactic moves. And if they are dead lost they also resigns earlier than the players we watch at ACC. So several players was mated today and Sulskis even got the chance to deliver the mate. GM Emanuel Berg played a odd looking opening, but he got away with it and he also ended it with a mating attack. Do you still wonder why I called Sulskis and Berg attractive attacking players in my profiles? Not really I guess and especially the Swedish GM produces chess it's well worth watching!
The game that was on every ones lips was of course US Wonderboy Ray Robson versus GM Monika Socko on first board. Both with 2750+ performances, and they are the true starts of this tourment so far! With a victory one of them even could get a 1 point gap to the rest of the field with a few draws going their way - but quite the opposite happened. IM Ray Robson got what looked like a clear edge to me even though he sacrificed a pawn. He had an advantage in both space and piece activity and white possessed the half open b-file. No doubt white had an advantage but a pawn is a pawn and it wasn't so easy to make progress. Analyses shows at least that it is hard to make progress in this quite closed position with no effective breaks for white. Robson played for an attack with his pieces, but he had to accept the draw when he reached the time control at move 40. Then he had used all his time, and he even was in some time trouble, even though it looked quite controlled. A relevant result in a hard fought game. Our two Stars of the tournament are still unbeaten with 6/7! They share a 3-way tie with IM Petrov with Socko first, Petrov second and Robson third on tiebreaks. It's funny how Monika keeps it in the family when her husband nder performs. She really deserves all the credit in the world being the only player in the field with a 2700+ performance!!!
IM Ray Robson - GM Monika Socko
GM Monika Socko played her Accelerated Dragon again and once again I have to say I think it was a smart choice against an attacking player that avoids the Maroczy Bind with 5.c4(!). OK, Robson wouldn't be in his right element in a closed position and as GM Emanuel Berg in the 3rd round Robson went for the Nc3-line that suits his style just as it suits Berg's style. Most white players here hope for a regular version of the Dragon, and more often than you would think it actually become one. But black have several ways to avoid it and an Anti-Dragon is doing better in practical play. When Robson went for the sharp 8.f3 Monika once again played the theoretical testing move 8...Qb6!. White has a few ways to meet this aggressive move and Robson went into the same mainline that GM Emanuel Berg played. White sacrifice the b2-pawn here to get rid of blacks important Black Squared Bishop. As compensation he gets the Pair of Bishops, active pieces with lines to operate and a slightly weakened black King he has compensation. When I studied this years ago my impression was that black is OK. But in chess it is easier to play the attack and in practical play white scores a nice 57% over a few hundred games in my database. Both players was well prepared and IM Robson varied from the Emanuel Berg game with 14.Qc3. The variation he chose with 18.f4! is played before but it is a strong move anyway. Monika reacted with the rare 18..h4 and it looks like good preparation as Polish GM Bartùomiej Macieja has played it in 2005 and it also is Rybka's clear first choice. Robson's 20.c4 can be debated but it has some points to it. The dark side is that it closes a retreat for the Bishop at d5 - and that Bishop really don't feel that comfortable in all lines due to a black e6. The c-line is also an asset for white, and a move like 20.Rc3!? was therefore possible too. White's problem with c4 is that the c5-break is hard to achieve, and without it c4 seems inferior. Between move 20 and 30 there might be some improvements for white. White is active and looks preferable till things starts to get simplified. 25.Bxb7?! allowed black to take at c4 and then trade pieces and get his rook at h8 into play. It seems better to keep the pieces at the board with something like 26.Qe2 which is Rybka's choice. I tried to formulate a plan for white here to make progress by the position has no real breaks as c5 seems close to impossible to get in. Anyway - the position should be played out and not analysed to death and the white position is the one with chances even though he is pawn down. After the trades Robson went for Qc1-g5 and started piece action on the K-side. He got his pawn back at h4, but that was about it. At move 40 the player took a draw byperpetual check - it was nothing more to play for. I'm extremely impressed by both players so far. Especially by Robson the young that never been in anything close to trouble so far in the tournament! He already met 5 titled players (3 GMs) and his TPR is 2679! This guy is running for a GM-norm and he will fight for tournament victory. The irony is that Robson will face IM Marijan Petrov in the next round of Arctic Chess Challenge Saturday at 12 O'clock Norwegian time (GMT +1). Who could guess that two IM's was going to play first board of such a strong tournament in the penultimate round! ? Monika's performance is also overwhelming and the same you can say about the third player in the 3-way tie for first - IM Petrov. It's actually quite realistic that a 2500- wins ACC and in the preview I delivered Chessbase I wrote "At least eight of the GMs, all with ratings over 2550, have a fair shot at the first prize money". Yeah, right! - and what about the IMs and the women??
IM Kiik - IM Petrov
Two IMs met at 3rd board. I can't remember to have seen so many IMs on the top boards of an Open and it must be kind of special. IM Kalle Kiik (2475) Estland, played the white side of a Modern Defence and he sacrificed a pawn in the opening. He could have got it back on move 14 by the tactical 14.Nb5 or the stringht farward 14.Rd1 but played instead the adventurous 14.Bh6. Marijan Petrov (2475) from Bulgaria still had things to solve since white had a lead in development. Petrov maneuvered threw the complications in a greedy fashion as he took a pawn at both b2 and a4 before he completed his development. It seems like the right approach to the position and when he took at a4 with 20...Qxa4 he had to see the nice 21...e5! that saves his Queen. After 21.Qc3+ Kg8?? 22.Rd4! white wins as Qa4 is trapped. The natural 23.Rdd7 wasn't justified by concrete calculation and it was the start of the end for IM Kiik. He lost after just 6 more moves and you wouldn't expect this as white seemed to have some compensation for the pawn at move 23 with his active pieces. An important win for IM Petrov and he didn't quite get the attention he deserved so far. Now he has 6/7 and is in a 3-way tie for first.
GM Radulski - GM Hammer
Jon Ludvig Hammer (2583) invited to the Berlin Defence in Ruy Lopez but his opponent Radulski (2539) didn't want anything of that and played the slow 4.d3-line instead. With the nice 22...g3! Hammer won a piece but white had quite some compensation in a complex game with a wide open black King-position. Hammer looked better, and was no doubt much better when the white pawn at d6 fell. The greedy 28...Bxf4? was a huge mistake that gave white the opportunity to win back the piece with 29.Rxd8 Rxd8 30.Qc4! steering the game into an unbalanced rook ending with 3 pawns each where black had activity and white two connected passers. Radulski did just that and both players seemed to play the ending well. It ended in a hard fought draw after 49 moves. GM Hammer is still on track for one of the top spots, and so are Radulski. They both performed has performances slightly above expected and with 5.5/7 they are in a 5-way tie for 4-8 place.
GM Sarunas Sulskis (picture from a previous round) played the black side of a Ruy Lopez where he opted for 7...Bg4. When his opponent, FM Arkadiusz Leniart (2390) from Poland played h3 the Bishop ended up at h5. At move 11 the aggressive attacking player Sulskis played the sacrifice 11...Nxg4!? true to his style. It is a relevant question to ask if 11...Bg6(!), with the threat of 12...h5!, was even better for black after the inferior 11.g4?!. The aggressive Lithuanian did win in attack today, and even though the Queens got swapped of he managed to deliver mate with a double rook invasion at move 32. Black was in fact mated at move 37 - a rare happening at this level.
IM Luca Shytaj - GM Vadim Malakhatko
IM Luca Shytaj (2455) from Italy continues to impress and he beat GM Vadim Malakhatko from Belgium in 7th round. In a French Tarrasch IM Shytaj played showed some impressive preparation as white. He only spent 40 minutes on the entire game! He got the chance to play the Bishop sac 13.Bxe6! and white got a strong attack known from the game Andriasian - Rodshtein, Yerevan 2006. Malakhatko deviated from this game with his 18...Be7 but he still was close toast. The little fish do think black has some defencive chances after only move 19...Rae8. But whites chances are excellent after 19.Re3! and I don't think it would have changed much. IM Shytaj won with a mating attack in 23 moves and only 4 of them have not been seen before... The Italian IM seems on his way to a GM-norm with 5.5/7 and a TPR rating of 2627!
What about the Swedish attacking wiz GM Emanuel Berg (2610) He won with a direct King side attack today too. In a Winawer French as white he played a bit artificial with 10.Bf1?!. The point of this variation is 9.Bh6! Ng6 10.Bxg6 fxg6 11.Be3 and white is supposed to get something small. It goes without saying that French specialist Berg knew this but I guess he wanted to surprise his opponent to get out of prep. Well, it worked out fine when IM Fabio Bruno didn't take his chance to play the active 10...f6(!) to create play when white still is under developed. GM Berg had just played the provocative 10.Qd1!? and GM Simen Agdestein made a new Norwegian word for such moves some years ago. He calls them "innvikling" - it's the opposite of development and on English the same frase would be invelopment. When Berg played 9.Bf1 and 10.Qd1 he inveloped the pieces! Instead of f6 Bruno started play at the Q-side with b5 and GM Berg managed to take over the K-side play after a while. He won with a Kings attack just before the time control at move 40 and black was then mated in a few moves. Nice Emanuel! The Swede is now the last player with 5.5/7.
GM Igor Khenkin - GM Allan Stig Rasmussen
This game ended in a draw after 28 moves in a Queens Gambit Accepted. Both players have 5/7 and Stig Allan is 9th with Igor on 10th place.
7th times North Norwegian Champion Pål Røyset (2232) got his chance after sober play against Bartosz Socko (2656) in a c3-Sicilian and it's hard to understand how Bartosz did save 3 totally lost positions against Norwegians Bull Jæger (2105), FM Stokke (2347) and now Røyset (2232)! Røyset missed a few chances but even though he was completely winning at move 40 - but he was in some time trouble. He played his 40th move, which blew a lot of the advantage, with only 1 minute left on the clock. Røyset missed 40.Ne3! and the important pawn on d5 is lost for black and his position collapses at once! The tactical point is 40.Ne3! Rxc3 41.Qd6! with a winning attack. After missing this he had several chances to play it again with quite some edge but failed to do so. Instead he played for an attack with 42.Nh6 and I felt Nimzowitsch scream when I saw this move... He still was much better and Rybka gives a +1 after 43.c4!. But now the Norwegian totally lost track of it with 43.Qe3? and he managed to lose an endgame in 56 moves. Sooo close but the top seed Socko saved his skin again, and with 5/7 and a TPR of 2506 he even can start to hope for a cash prize in the end.
Nicolai Getz - GM Heikki Westerinen
Nicolai Gets (2219) will start his 3rd year at NTG with GM Agdestein this August and he has been "promising" a long time without really take his next step. It seems to come now and he did brilliant in Arctic Chess Challenge so far. With black in a Ruy Lopez he beat veteran GM Westerinen (2362) in a Knight and Rook ending with 6 pawns each. Getz is second best Norwegian so far with 5/7 and a TPR of 2481!
WFM Katrine Tjølsen (2160) has one WIM-norm from Benedorm and today she beat IM Harald Groetz (2350) from Austria as white. Katrine did "invelope" both her Knights with Nc3-e2-g1 and Nd2-b1... I don't quite believe in this approach, but she did play a nice game and I won't argue. Nice Katrine! Katrine is the last player with 4.5/7 and with a TPR of 2280 she has done it well.
GM Matthew Turner did win today against IM Anna Zozulia (2341) with white. He is 14th with 5/7 and a TPR of 2412. He still is in a fighting position for the cash prizes.
Matthew student Peter Poobalasingam (2224) drew WGM Natalia Zdebskaja from Ukraine and both have 4.5/7.
16 years old Lasse Løvik (2296) played black against Jon Kristian Harr (2110) and won. I think he is one of those talented youngsters that still is underrated and his Norwegian Elo is 50 points higher. During Arctic Chess Challenge Løvik did perform about at his FIDE level, but it's still time left.
GM Amon Simutowe did in fact get the same Rook and pawn versus Bishop ending that Monika Socko didn't manage to win as black against Emanuel Berg. It's clearly won - with some exceptions - and even though it requires more than Grandmaster technique due to stalemate patterns when the black King gets into the corner - I do expect such class players to win it. It's way harder endings in chess that is close to impossible to win for a human against perfect defence - like K + 2B vs K + N. Anyway, Simutowe found the right approach at last when he pushed the h-pawn after being prepared. GM Simutowe won and with 4.5/7 things ain't so grim as they used to be.
Here you see IM Aleksandar H. Wohl (2387) from Australia drawing Vegar Koi Gandrud (2169) from Norway. Both players have 4/7.
Young Even Thingstad will start his education on NTG with GM Agdestein this August. He drew FM Kari Tikkanen today and have 50% score.
So what about 13 years old Peter Flermoen and Gregor Taube? They both drew today. Peter Flermoen against a Jeroen Van Den Bersselaar (2184) and Gregor against an unrated. Flermoen has a TPR of 2268 and Gregor has a TPR of 2032.
This is Ian Malan from South Africa. The young players is 1500 in South Africa and is in the delegation that Simen Agdestein did re-invite to Norway as friends of NTG. Ian won his first game today!
Having a talk about computer stuff? You see Bjørn Berg Johansen (left) - responsible for the LIVE-broadcast. He also takes a lot of nice photos from the tournament - the best ones! Harald Heggelund (right) is from Northern Norway and he is the man behind The Chess Arbiter's Swiss knife - what you know as Tournament Service. It is the program we use to run the tournament - and I haven't seen a better one yet!
Øystein Brekke has just seen the light, and here you see him share a few ideas about the Chess Olympics of Tromsø 2014. Brekke organized many of the strongest international tournaments Norway ever had like Aker Chess Challenge 2009. He is a man of both vision and ability to act. If Tromsø gets the bid for the Chess Olympics he will be an extremely important man I believe.
Today's social activity was a Blitz tournament with 300 Euros as first price. This worked out to attract quite a few of our Grandmaster and even GM Kouatly and GM Fontaine from France joined the company and played some Blitz. They are both in Tromsø to make videos and to promote Troms¸ 2014's bid for the Chess Olympics in 2014. A total of 9 Grandmaster played the blitz and the winner was... Yes, as you can see from the picture top seed Bartosz Socko finally showed some form and with 7/9 he took it home. The funny thing was that GM Amon Simutowe (2481) and GM Yuri Drozdovskij (2620) took the next two places with 6.5/9. They both also underperformed in the main event so far - but I guess that just gave them extra motivation to win a money prize...
This picture is from earlier this weeks and shows GM Simen Agdestein on an expedition with his girlfriend and pupils from NTG and some of the South Africans he re-invited to Tromsø if I'm not mistaken. They are mountain climbing at "Store Blå Mann" which means "Big Blue Man" and the Island it is situated on is called "The Whale's Island". You got it right if you guessed that the names are related to the shape of them.
Picture provided by Yolandi Odendaal
This is far from the roughest part of the climbing, but Simen got the help he needed from two successful players in the tournament so far - GM Jon Luvig Hammer (left) and Nicolai Getz, both from Oslo.
Picture provided by Yolandi Odendaal
These we can see reached the top! It is GM Simen Agdestein and his girlfriend Laila Arvola at the bottom left side. Behind Agdestein you can see young Even Thingstad and then follows Katrine Tjølsen behind. Nicolai Getz (in blue) and then GM Jon Ludvig Hammer. In front we see the toughest one. Yolandi Odendaal from South Africa also reached the top and she provided me these wonderful pictures. "Big Blue Man" is 1044 meters above sea level.
Picture provided by Yolandi Odendaal
So what's the price you get when you reach the top? This wonderful view!
Picture provided by Yolandi Odendaal
Arctic Chess Challenge is in the news on almost all the major chess sites now, check it out!
Chessbase have an article after 5th round by IM Torstein Bae in English and an edited version in German.
Chessdom have an article after 6th round by yours truly - it's a summary of the most important stuff so far and you also find 10 selected games online that are a must see!
Even Mikael Greengard, alias MIG, has a report on famous blog Daily Dirt. Mig is one of the leading chess journalists in the world, and of course he follow the young American Chess Star Ray Robson. He even gave my blog a link - thanks!
Susan Polgar didn't lose her either. She provided so many nice photos that you got to visit her! She even give her us her impressions from Tromsø in an exclusive post and no one pay her for any of this work. All Susans article's can be found together.
If you read French even Europe Echecs with GM Kouatly and GM Fontaine have some stuff out there - they both work for the most important chess site in the French speaking world of chess.
The official homepage of Arctic Chess Challenge with results, table and games.
The entire text and all photos that not are credited others by Sven Wisløff-Nilssen (C) 2009
08.aug.2009 kl.17:12