Dortmund Chess Meeting 2007 – Round 5

World Champion Vladimir Kramnik is on a good way to win his 8th Dortmund Sparkassen. Currently he is leading with 3.5 points out of 5, with “easy” schedule in the remaining two rounds. Kramnik will face Arkadij Naiditsch, whom he beat at the last-year Olympiad, in round 6 with White pieces. Last round he is playing Black against Russian champion Evgeny Alexeev. The two have never played before.

Vladimir Kramnik

Viswanathan Anand and Evgeny Alekseev, who just saved tough position against Naiditsch in 5th round, are half point behind Kramnik. Dortmund Chess Meeting goes as expected, with only five decided games out of 20 played. The main problem is obviously the clumsy 8-player single round-robin, where players are not eager to take too much risk.

Chessvibes has videos and interviews from Dortmund.

Round 6 Results:

Vladimir Kramnik – Arkadij Naiditsch 1-0

Boris Gelfand – Peter Leko 0-1

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov – Magnus Carlsen draw

Viswanathan Anand – Evgeny Alekseev draw

Round 6 Standings:

1. Vladimir Kramnik (RUS 2772) 4.5

2-4. Viswanathan Anand (IND 2786), Peter Leko (HUN 2738) and Evgeny Alekseev (RUS 2679) 3.5

5. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE 2757) 3.0

6. Magnus Carlsen (NOR 2693) 2.5

7. Boris Gelfand (ISR 2733) 2.0

8. Arkadij Naiditsch (GER 2654) 1.5

Final Report

June 9-16

The famous chess player and problemist, Bert van der Marel, decided to organize an IM norm event, with 10 players, average rating 2377. The event took place June 9-16 in Atlantis Chess Cafe with the participation of IM Daan Brandenburg, IM Dejan Bojkov, IM Erik Hoeksema, FM Alexander van Beek, FM Adrian Clemens, FM Bonno Pel, FM Xavier Bedouin, FM Charles Monroy, Grisha Kodentsov, and Petar Drenchev.

IM Dejan Bojkov won the event with 7.0/9, followed by Daan Brandenburg with 6.0/9. Unfortunately none of the FM and untitled players reached the 5,5 points for an IM norm.

Dejan Bojkov and Daan Brandenburg analyzing

The winner Dejan Bojkov tells us more about the event:

From my state in Groningen I noticed that it is not only an extremely beautiful town, but that is also a place where chess is respected. We had many visitors during the tournament, including some GMs like Visser, Ernst and Werle. Every night the best game of the day was annotated from the players in the Atlantis Café on a big demonstration board, so that all the chess fans can take a look, and even join the analyzes.

Bert van der Marel s a big chess fan and owes the famous Atlantis Chess Café. We even played there the last rounds of the tournament. Geon Knol was the tournament director, and the man who helped us feel as if we were home.

Replayable games

Report: IM Dejan Bojkov

Official tournament page: http://cafeatlantis.nl/meestertienkamp/index.html

Last test before Mexico World Championship

Vladimir Kramnik

The 35th Sparkassen Chess-Meeting is taking place on 23rd June – 1st July at the Dortmund theater. World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who won Dortmund seven times, is back to defend his last-year trophy. His participation was in question after the strong respiratory infection, but antibiotics enabled him to start on time. Furthermore, we can’t see any sign of fatigue in his play, after the first round draw against Anand, he knocked Boris Gelfand in the 2nd.

The tournament format is, again, eight players in the single round-robin. Somewhere in between 10-players all play all and 6-players in double round-robin, this is probably the worst choice. Seven rounds is simply too short, and losing one game is a luxury that everyone will try to avoid. Usually, plus two or plus three is enough to win the tournament.

But Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, fearless 21-years old attacker, is not bothering himself with tournament math. In approximately equal position against Evgeny Alexeev, he sacrificed an exchange without any obvious compensation. Young Russian kept his coolness and routinely avoided all the traps to win the game.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Magnus Carlsen

First round Mamedyarov surprised Arkadij Naiditsch with a rare and unpretentious line in Two Knights opening. Best German player, and shocking 2005 Dortmund winner, didn’t react too well and allowed doubling pawns, which cost him the game. We should mention that last year Naiditsch tried the same opening with White against Magnus Carlsen, and got crushed pretty fast.

Magnus Carlsen is not only one of the most active chess professionals, but he also matured a lot during the last year. Some chess authors wrote him off after the bad performance at Corus in January, saying that he needs couple of years more to properly enter 2700 club. Norwegian prodigy went to Linares, lined his pieces and pressed the clock. A fantastic tournament, where he missed the trophy only in the last round, brought him back in the focus. Strong resistance against favored Levon Aronian in Candidate Matches only confirmed his excellent shape. This is a chance to win his first super-tournament, and he will surely fight till the very last round.

Peter Leko and Vishy Anand

Of course, the favorite number one, alongside Vladimir Kramnik, is FIDE top-rated Vishy Anand. He will also play in Leon on July 4-9th, but the tournament of his life could be the Mexico World Championship. Another two Mexico participants, Boris Gelfand and two-times Dortmund winner Peter Leko, are shaping their form for the September.

June 25th, Round 3:

Magnus Carlsen – Evgeny Alekseev draw

Boris Gelfand – Viswanathan Anand draw

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov – Vladimir Kramnik draw

Peter Leko – Arkadij Naiditsch draw

June 26th, Round 4:

Vladimir Kramnik – Magnus Carlsen 1-0

Viswanathan Anand – Arkadij Naiditsch 1-0

Boris Gelfand – Shakhriyar Mamedyarov draw

Evgeny Alekseev – Peter Leko draw

Round 4 Standings:

1. Vladimir Kramnik (RUS 2772) 3.0

2-3. Viswanathan Anand (IND 2786) and Evgeny Alekseev (RUS 2679) 2.5

4-5. Peter Leko (HUN 2738) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE 2757) 2.0

6-7. Boris Gelfand (ISR 2733) and Magnus Carlsen (NOR 2693) 1.5

8. Arkadij Naiditsch (GER 2654) 1.0

Round 5 report

Final Report

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov video interview

Karjakin, Shirov and Ivanchuk leading after four rounds

The 2nd Aerosvit tournament is taking place on June 18th-29th in Foros spa on Crimea, Ukraine. Similar to last year, the organizers have composed strong field with the average rating of 2695 elo. Rate of play is 120 minutes and 30 sec increment from move one, without time control.

Some of the players, like Alexei Shirov and Sergei Rublevsky, had one few days of rest after the exhausting candidate matches. While Shirov doesn’t seem to suffer from fatigue, he beat Rublevsky and Dominguez and lost to Van Wely, Rublevsky is taking it slowly by drawing couple of games. At the same time, fresh Peter Svidler is not displaying any fighting attitude, having quickly agreed on draws in all four rounds.

Alexei Shirov and Lenier Dominguez

Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu also arrived somewhat tired, after playing the Mtel Masters, he assisted Shirov in Elista matches. This costed him dropping equal position to Vassily Ivanchuk and succumbing against Pavel Eljanov. Another Mtel Masters participant, Krishnan Sasikiran is here. He started with a fine win against Ukranian-American Alexander Onischuk, but lost to Jakovenko in the next round.

Krishnan Sasikiran and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu

Vassily Ivanchuk arrived after storming through Cuba to win his third consecutive Capablanca memorial. His counterpart from Havana, Lenier Dominguez, has been invited again to play in Foros. He has earned 16 rating points at the recently ended zonal championship and is only 5 points shy from joining the 2700 club. All Cuban eyes on him!

Vassily Ivanchuk and Sergey Karjakin

Fearless Dutch Loek Van Wely quickly recovered from two starting defeats and crushed Shirov and Jakovenko, both being beautiful games. Still, probably the best game so far was played by Sergey Karjakin, who sacrificed Knight out of clear sky to demolish Eljanov.

Round 4 standings:

1-3. Alexei Shirov (ESP 2699), Sergey Karjakin (UKR 2686) and Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR 2729) 2.5

4-10. Lenier Dominguez (CUB 2678), Peter Svidler (RUS 2736), Krishnan Sasikiran (IND 2690), Alexander Onischuk (USA 2663), Dmitry Jakovenko (RUS 2708), Pavel Eljanov (UKR 2686) and Loek Van Wely (NED 2674) 2.0

11. Sergei Rublevsky (RUS 2680) 1.5

12. Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (ROM 2693) 1.0

Official website

Video interview with Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu at the Sofia airport

Topalov-Nisipeanu post mortem

Adams and Nisipeanu sharing autographs

Video interview with GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu after the Mtel Round 8

GM Lev Psakhis about Krishnan Sasikiran

Krishnan Sasikiran at the Mtel opening

Analysis by IM Kalin Karakehayov

Important information:

General Valjevo page – all the info about Gorenje

Report part 1 – replayable games and pictures

Mihajlo Sojanovic – analized game by M. Stojanovic
Karpov – Nikolic – analysis by IM Kalin Karakehayov

Suat Atalik

After the game Goran Urosevic made an extensive interview with Suat Atalik, the current leader of Valjevo 2007. GM Atalik is a really fantastic person, who kept on talking and talking until our battery went out. He shared that no matter that computers may give advantage for white at some stages, it is very difficult to play the game as white. That is why Pavasovic was losing so much time in calculations. Atalik said that Bh5 was the move that saved his opponent.

The conversation that we had was so long that even GM Topalov and Danailov, as well as the World Championship in Mexico, came up. Strangely enough, exactly tomorrow we have a scheduled interview with Mr. Danailov. Both interviews, by Mr. Atalik and by Mr. Danailov, will be ready by Monday, be sure to check them out.

Mihajlo Stojanovic

Mihajlo, a fantastic chess player that very often works with the Chessdom team, was the man of the day. Stojanovic is from Valjevo and all the audience is strongly supporting him. He could not get out of the playing hall for about 15 minutes. Later he tried to have dinner, but nobody let him. Everybody wanted to shake hands with him and congratulate him.

Stojanovic had a really stable game, but most probably the mistakes came from Georgiev. Here we present you the detailed analysis by IM Kalin Karakehayov.

Karpov draws, Atalik and Ivanishevic win

Update 18:00

Anatoly Karpov is in Valjevo with a coach! It is Alexander Riazantsev (ELO 2621). Anatoly is very concentrated on the game and is spending serious time, and Nikolic is standing against him showing no emotion. It is fun to watch Georgiev and Roiz playing. Both are moving very slowly and spend a lot of time looking through the window.

Ivanisevic talked to our head of editors and said that he is very confident. Ivanisevic is happy with his opening preparation and believes he has all the chances for winning the tournament.

Update 19:30

A few minutes ago Roiz proposed a draw and Georgiev agreed. It was a very active game by both players with many options and possible outcomes. Expect later tonight the commentary of IM Kalin Karakehayov.

At that moment Karpov has a slight advantage and looks very eager to score in the first game of Gorenje. Stay tuned for updates!

Update 20:30

Suat Atalik won convincingly his game against the only IM participant (and Chessdom.com contributor) IM Mihajlo Stojanovic. Atalik was superior during the whole game and Stojanovic had no chance for taking a point.

First round pairings

GM Karpov Anatoly 2668 – GM Nikolic Predrag 2631

GM Ivanisevic Ivan 2614 – GM Pavasovic Dusko 2567

GM Atalik Suat 2584 – IM Stojanovic Mihajlo 2588

GM Georgiev Kiril 2653 – GM Roiz Michael 2616

GM Iordachescu Viorel 2587 – GM Damljanovic Branko 2585

Expect analysis of the games by IM Kalin Karakehayov and many pictures and stories by our correspondent in Valjevo.

Do not forget to check out the toto game organized by Alex Brunetti. It features fantastic prizes.

Important information:

Gorenje 2007 (Valjevo) preview

List of participants

VSK official site – in Serbian

General Valjevo page

Aronian qualifies for Mexico 2007

The chess fans will see another tiebreak in Elista. This time it will be between Rublevsky and Grishchuk. They finished draw in game 6 and will have to play rapid and blitz games to decide who takes the final spot in Mexico 2007. Or maybe we should not claim it is the final spot, since Veselin Topalov will have his last chance to enter the World Championship after the meeting in Talin.

Until then we can be sure that we will see Leko, Gelfand, Svidler, Morozevich, Kramnik, Anand, and Aronian who qualified today after defeating Shirov 3,5 – 2,5.

While reporting the last action from Elista, our team is traveling to Valjevo, where Karpov comes back in action. Chessdom will be the official page of the tournament and you can find all the info at the specialized section – www.chessdom.com/valjevo-2007.

Levon Aronian (ARM) – Alexei Shirov (ESP) 3,5 – 2,5

Alexander Grischuk (RUS) – Sergei Rublevsky (RUS) 3 – 3

Visit the page dedicated to the World Chess Championship Mexico 2007 for more info about the WCC 2007.

GM Dejan Antic took the trophy

The New South Wales Open Championship took place on June 9th-11th in Parramatta RSL, Sydney. After 7 rounds played with Swiss system, Serbian GM Dejan Antic took clear first place with 6.0 points. Australian top player GM Ian Rogers and the Hungarian IM Andras Toth finished tied on 2nd place with 5.5 points each.

There were 107 participants. More information on The Closet Grandmaster blog.

Leko a step away from victory, Rublevsky equalizes

Levon Aronian (ARM) – Alexei Shirov (ESP) 2,5 – 1,5

Peter Leko (HUN) – Evgeny Bareev (RUS) 3,0 – 1,0

Alexander Grischuk (RUS) – Sergei Rublevsky (RUS) 2 – 2

Gata Kamsky (USA) – Boris Gelfand (ISR) 1,5 – 2,5

IM Irina Krush finishes 12th

GM Bosko Abramovic vs GM Hikaru Nakamura

Final standings

1 GM Nakamura, Hikaru 2738 5.5

2 GM Kortchnoi, Viktor 2664 5.0

3 IM Sevillano, Enrico 2571 5.0

4 GM Serper, Gregory 2562 5.0

5 IM Friedel, Joshua E 2542 5.0

6 IM Gonzalez, Renier 2526 5.0

7 IM Matikozyan, Andranik 2524 5.0

8 GM Akobian, Varuzhan 2651 4.5

9 GM Erenburg, Sergey 2610 4.5

10 GM Kolev, Atanas 2603 4.5

Las Vegas International Chess Festival is took place on June 7th-11th in Las Vegas, Nevada. The main event National Open 2007 was divided into seven sections and the total prize fund was worth 100.000 USD. Alongside the high-stake Open, the Susan Polgar Foundation and the Las Vegas International Chess Festival were hosting The Susan Polgar World Open Chess Championship for Girls, The Susan Polgar World Chess Challenge for Boys, Blitz Chess Championship and Chess Puzzle Solving Contest for Girls and Boys.

Special Features included simuls by GM Victor Kortchnoi and GM Alexander Shabalov and lectures by GM Arthur Bisguier, IM John Donaldson and GM Susan Polgar.

GM Victor Kortchnoi signing autographs

GM Victor Kortchnoi vs FM Elliot Liu

Photos by Susan Polgar