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European Team Chess 01: Tough start for higher seeds

The first round of the European Team Chess Championship 2015 turned out to be anything but easy for the stronger teams. Higher ranked teams like Norway (who rested Carlsen for Round 1), Czech Republic and Latvia were shocked by Montenegro, Denmark and Finland respectively.

Plenty of good teams were held to draws as well. Of note were draws by Moldova and Austria against Hungary and Poland respectively. Although most teams shed a few board points, Armenia and Georgia managed to record 4-0 victories over their respective opponents.

Complete Round 1 Results: Here

Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona Final: Morozevich triumphs!

Despite suffering a last round loss to GM Axel Bachmann, Russian GM Alexander Morozevich won the Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona Tournament 2015. Morozevich, scored a total of 3 points, the same as Bachmann. However, Morozevich’s superior tie-break helped him clinch the title, with Bachmann securing the second spot.

The last round of the tournament also featured an upset as IM Asis Gargatagli scored an upset win over GM Karen Grigoryan with the black pieces. This enabled the Spanish IM to finish tied for the 3rd-4th places along with GM Balogh Csaba. The latter had a pretty sedate tournament with all his games ending in draws.

Edmonton Invitational 03: Bakre and Kraai lead

The Alberta Chess Association is organising the Edmonton Invitational Tournament with three grandmasters in the fray.

In round three, GM Jesse Kraai (2506) of USA and India’s GM Tejas Bakre (2438) drew to walk into joint lead at the end of three rounds with 2.5/3.

Check the Round 4 pairings here.

Barcelona Chess 03: Morozevich dominant

GM Alexander Morozevich scored his second win of the Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona Chess Tournament 2015 by outclassing GM Narciso Dublan in the third round. The remaining two games – GM Bachmann vs IM Asis Gargatagli and GM Balogh vs GM Karen Grigoryan – were drawn.

The Narciso Dublan – Morozevich encounter took off with the latter wheeling out the Sicilian Defence in reply to Narciso’s 1.e4. The Spanish Grandmaster’s opening turned out to be a failure as Morozevich managed to secure a pleasant position right out of the opening. Morozevich never really allowed his opponent to get back into the game and in the end, won the game convincingly.

After 3 rounds, Morozevich has notched up a total of 2.5 points and is leading his nearest competitors by a full point margin.

Barcelona 02: All Draws

The second round of the Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona Tournament 2015 saw all the three games end in draws. However, the games were not devoid of some interesting chess.

The most exciting game of the day was top-seed GM Alexander Morozevich’s draw against GM Balogh Csaba. Having commenced the game with 1.b3, Morozevich secured a pleasant advantage out of the opening, which he held right through to the endgame. However, a couple of errors on moves 35 and 36 not only saw the Russian GM lose his advantage but also end up much worse. Balogh, on his part, was unable to take advantage of his opponents errors and the game finally ended peacefully.

After two rounds, Morozevich is leading the field solely with a total of 1.5 points.

WYCC 2015: Indians win 11 medals in total; 5 Golds

The Indian contingent had a clearly superior performance at the 2015 World Youth Chess Championship at Porto Carras, Greece winning eleven medals. Seventeen countries were competing for thirty-six medals in Open and Girls sections in the Under 08, Under 10, Under 12, Under 14, Under 16 and Under 18 age categories.

None of the other countries could manage more than four medals in their respective tallies. India’s eleven-medal haul includes five gold medals, three silver medals and three bronze medals.

The winners among Indians are mentioned below.

5 Gold medals: Rakshitta Ravi in Girls U-10, Mahalakshmi M in Girls U-18, Praggnanandhaa R in U-10, Vaishali R in Girls U-14 and Bharath Subramaniyam H in U-08.
3 Silver medals: Dev Shah in U-08, Varshini V in Girls U-18, Nihal Sarin in U-12.
3 Bronze medals: Divya Deshmukh in Girls U-10, Salonika Saina in Girls U-12, Vantika Agrawal in Girls U-14.

Barcelona 01: Sole winner Morozevich

The Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona Tournament 2015 commenced yesterday in Barcelona, Spain. The tournament features a total of 6 players, who will fight it out over the course of five rounds in the round-robin format. World No. 44 Alexander Morozevich, who currently boasts a FIDE rating of 2695, is the top-seeded player in the event.

The first round saw only one decisive result as GM Morozevich, playing the black side of a Sicilian Najdorf, overcame IM Asis Gargatagli. This came as a bit of a surprise as it was the latter who held the advantage for the major part of the game. However, Morozevich, putting all his experience into play, outplayed the Spanish IM in the endgame. Asis Gargatagli resigned on move 46.

Meanwhile, the other two battles – GM Bachmann vs GM Balogh and GM Narciso Dublan vs GM Karen Grigoryan – ended in draws. This allowed Morozevich to take an early lead in the tournament.

Kings Final: Germany wins the match

A 3-2 victory in the fifth and final round of their match against Romania helped Germany win the Kings Tournament 2015. The German team dominated the major part of the match, notching up a total of 14 points over the course of 5 rounds, as opposed to Romania’s 11 points.

For the Germans, GMs Buhmann Rainer and Wagner Dennis starred in the event, scoring a total of 3.5 points each. On the Romanian side, only IM Deac Bogdan-Daniel could score more than 50% as he finished with 3.5 points as well.

Kings 03: Exciting Wins!

The third round of the match between Germany and Romania turned out to be the most interesting one so far, with the three decisive games witnessing some exciting chess on the part of the winners. Amidst all the excitement, Romania overcame Germany 3-2.

Romania’s victory was anchored by GMs Marin and Parligras, with both of them winning in brilliant fashion against GMs Donchenko and Bluebaum respectively. For the Germans, GM Wagner was the lone scorer as he overcame GM Lupulescu convincingly. The remaining games were drawn.

Round 3 Results:

Germany

 Result

Romania

GM Wagner

 1-0 GM Lupulescu
GM Bluebaum 0-1

GM Parligras

GM Donchenko

 0-1 GM Marin
GM Buhmann ½-½

IM Deac

GM Fridman

 ½-½

GM Nevednichy
 

2-3

  

 

 

Bilbao Chess: Wesley So wins Bilbao Masters, 2015

American GM Wesley So (2760) won the tiebreak against Dutch GM Anish Giri (2798) to win the Bilbao Chess Masters, 2015.

Earlier during the day, both the games of Round 6 viz., Ding-Anand and So-Giri ended in draws, forcing a tiebreak match of blitz games to decide the winner among the Dutch and the American grandmasters.

In the first blitz game, Anish Giri built a winning position with the black pieces after So made some suspicious moves in a Queen’s Gambit Declined middlegame. Despite, being a pawn up, Giri failed to convert, and allowed So to fight back. Eventually, Giri ended up blundering a full piece, losing the game. In the second game, playing the white pieces, Giri again had a better position, but So defended hard. After several moves of back and forth, they both agreed to a draw in an opposite-coloured bishop ending.

GM Wesley So won the tie-break match 1.5-0.5, thus winning the tournament.