round 4 report and photos
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The 4th day of Arctic Chess Challenge saw the first Grandmaster encounters when top seeded GM Igor Kurnosov (2617) met GM Vitaly Kunin (2532) and GM Tomas Likavsky (2485) met GM Vadim Malakhatko (2612). GM Agdestein and GM Matthew Turner had switched students today and met each others pupils. It’s still warm in Tromsø and Magnus Carlsen’s father Henrik are among those using the nice weather for walks in the mountain. It’s plenty of nice mountains to climb in the area and this is the season to do so. Talking about Carlsen, Henrik is here with all his family except Magnus, but on Friday Magnus will show up and share some time with his family and chess friends.
GM Igor Kurnosov (2617) met GM Vitaly Kunin (2532) and it started out as a slow Italian game and neither part achieved anything substantial at any moment. It ended as a draw without much drama on move 27 in a balanced position. Then it was more action on board 2 where GM Tomas Likavsky (2485), Slovakia played GM Vadim Malakhatko (2612), Belgium. On all top boards today white adopted a slow opening approach, and so did Likavsky against the Slave defence where he went for a variation where he got the pair of bishops. The position became closed though, so they didn’t do much and ended up as Karpovian bishops at f1 and e1 waiting for things to open up. In the middle game both players attacked at opposite wings but it soon turned out that the blacks kingside-attack was the most dangerous one. He got a knight check at f3 transposing a pawn there with the King trapped in a box. GM Malakhatko broke threw the last resistance at move 40 and is the only player left with a perfect score.
GM Matthew Turner (2493) played Agdestein’s student FM Espen Forså (2282) in a c3-Sicilian. Forså had one of his worst days over a chessboard, blundering a piece just out of the opening and lost horribly.
GM Simen Agdestein on his side played GM Turners student Peter S Poobalasingam (2203) in an English opening. Agdestein played the somewhat unusual Bd2 and Qc1, to steer the game out of book as early as possible I guess. It was a good plan as Poobalasingam didn’t solve the positional problems he was faced. Agdestein got a good position early on and won his game quite easily. The old soccer player is still a good sport and we expect him to fight for the top places. Agdestein is playing more chess these days than for a long while. After ACC he will take part on the experienced team in the match up Experience vs Youth in The Netherlands and he will also take part on the Norwegian team in the Chess Olympics at Dresden this autumn.
GM Sergey Kasparov (2486) played another of Agdestein’s students, FM Joachim Thomassen (2357) with the black pieces. They took a rather short draw in the Caro Kann, a result 17 years old Thomassen was pleased with since it secured him to stay in the top spots where he still meets titled players. Thomassen is hunting an IM-norm in Tromsø.
The last GM, Heikki Westerinen, was also involved in a Caro Kann where he saced a pawn with 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5.Bd3. The young Norwegian Even Thingstad took it with 5…Qxd4 and Westerinen got an active game as compensation. Alekhine played this gambit so it can’t be totally unsound even though it looks suspect. After some nice middle game tactics the Grandmaster won the game and is back on track after two draws.
FM Peter J Sowray (2327) played IM Bjørn Tiller (2374) in a most interesting game in the Modern Defence. IM Tiller was taken off guard in the opening but found a subtle way to offer an exchange. Sowray took the bait straight away, even though there might have been some inbetween moves like 11.c4 for him, and even though black was a whole exchange down it looked like he had fine compensation with his nice bishops, centre and developement. When Tiller, after excellent positional play, got his central break with 26…e4 it all ended up in a tactical firework where white sacrifised a whole rook for chaotic compensation. A piece up, Tiller didn’t find the best defence, 31…Kg8! – that put the white idea to the test, and lost quickly. FM Sowray then joins the group with 3.5/4.
The young Norwegians Johannes Kvisla, Daniel Jakobsen Kovachev and Lasse Østebø Løvik all won their games today and are in the group with 3 points. Lasse Østebø Løvik, who got half a point out of GM Westerinen yesterday, got quite lucky today. He was 3 pawns down against IM Anna Zozulia (2346) but tricked her with tactical play and won. A lot can happen if you just have that fighting spirit! So far the favourites have performed excellent in Tromsø, tomorrow will see the game GM Vadim Malakhatko (2612) – GM Igor Kurnosov (2617) that can be crucial for the tournament victory.
Standings after 4 rounds:
1. GM Vadim Malakhatko, BEL (2612) 4
2. GM Igor Kurnosov, RUS(2617) 3.5
3. GM Vitaly Kunin, GER (2532) 3.5
4. GM Simen Agdestein NOR (2583) 3.5
5. FM Peter J Sowray ENG (2327) 3.5
6. GM Matthew J Turner ENG (2493) 3.5
Reporter: Sven W. Nilssen Photos: Bjørn Berg Johansen and Jan S. Berglund
