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Le Quang Liem (World Blitz Chess Champion'2013) vs. Shahriyar Mamedyarov (World Rapid Chess Champion'2013)
Picture from the official website
This year's FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships have been held in the hospitable city of Khanty-Mansyisk, Russia. The events broke the anti-record in terms of absence of key players. In fact, of the top-10 players only Alexander Grischuk showed up. For comparison, here's how last year's tournament table (by far not he strongest line-up in history) looked like.
The main widely cited reason for this is schedule conflict. Some of the top GMs preferred to play in Sberbank Rapid, Leon, German Team Cup, or prepare for Tal Memorial (starts on June 12). While it sounds like bad news, there is another side of the coin. It proves that chess is developing rather rapidly, so FIDE is facing incredible competition from organizers of private tournaments. The crowns of Blitz and Rapid Chess Champions and a prize fund of $400,000 do not look that attractive to most of the top players. Indeed, some of them can expect appearance fees at super tournaments of the same level as the 1st prize at the Championships. Also, while being called the "World Champion" seems to have some bragging rights attached to it, the title is not THAT prestigious at the moment. Summarizing, if FIDE wants to attract more strong competitors next year, it will probably either have to allocate more sponsor money, or to somehow ensure that the titles/medals do offer some tangible benefits. Or, even better, implement both ideas.
Teimour Radjabov was one of the elite players who has publicly expressed his opinion about the tournament. You can view his interesting commentaries on Twitter (June 7 and on)
Unlike in the Rapid tournament where Nepomniatchi scored 9/10 during the first two days and finished at second place in the end (Mamedyarov - 11.5, Nepomniatchi - 11, Grischuk - 10.5), in blitz Le Quang Liem has been leading rather convincingly. An additional surprise was his compatriot's performance: Nguyen Ngoc Truon Son has affected the final standings a lot and has taken the 5th place.
Tan Zhongyi Won 3rd Women Masters Tournament in China
Written by Administrator
Sunday, 09 June 2013
All the female active top chess players (except for Hou Yifan and Zhao Xue), as well as two invited stars from Russia (Gunina) and Georgia (Javakhishvili) participated in China 3rd Women Masters Tournament in Wuxi. The prize fund was 211,000 yuan (roughly $35,000).
I have received the following message on FaceBook:
Hello Natalia,
This is Yolanda. I'm a Spanish chess lover and an independent filmmaker. I have been playing chess all my life and this game helped me a lot when I was depressed and having a really bad time in my life. I'm graduating now from a Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking. I'm on a scholarship (I don't have any family support) and I want to make this film about chess so badly. To me, chess has a lot to do with life. It's not exactly the same, of course, but it can help to analyze situations better and make the right decision. At the end, what I learnt from chess is that you need to try and try. Failing is not bad at all because you always learn from that and in the next game you will be better and better. Like in life.
Place: European Chess House, Golden sands Resort, Bulgaria Rate of play: 9 rounds, FIDE Swiss Time control: 90m/game, 30s/move from move one Titled players: 35 GMs, 9 WGMs, 124 titled players Rounds begin at: 3 p.m. local time, GMT+3h
Top-10 players by rating:
Click on the image to view the entire list of participants. Natalia Pogonina is seeded #1 among women and #31 overall.
A player who has been getting far too much attention for all the wrong reasons lately, is the Bulgarian FM Borislav Ivanov.
For anyone who has been sleeping under a rock for the last year or so, Ivanov is about a 2300 rated player who has been openly accused of computer cheating, due to the extraordinary results he has been gaining, often finishing his opponents off with some remarkable tactical shots, hence the computer link. It is also clear from anyone analysing his games in any detail, (if you are that sad) that a great percentage of Ivanov's moves coincide with the first choice of the computer.
The final round was full of drama: Fabiano Caruana managed to defeat the leader, Gata Kamsky, and to catch up with him on points. Meanwhile, Lenier Dominguez grinded out a win against Veselin Topalov to achieve an amazing performance: 8/11!, 2926 performance!
