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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Wijk aan Zee - R12

If you are a chess fan I hope you are following this tournament closely!

Exciting finish to come in last round!

In the A Group, Nakamura, who played very good chess so far, made a quick draw with white against Kramnik today. One could expect more but as Aronian only drew against L'Ami (having taken a lot of risks), and Anand struggled to draw against the young talent Giri, Nakamura is still leading before playing Wang Hao on Sunday.
Vachier-Lagrave won a nice game against Nepomniachtchi today. It's funny because I saw that in this game he used almost the same pattern than in the one he won against Rodshtein in Biel last July!!

In the B Group, there were 4 players leading with 7/11! In a crazy game McShane sacrificed a piece against So, then got it back, and when one could think it would end in a draw, So played mistakes before the 40th move and was suddenly lost!
Navara made a big come-back and is now leading with McShane, with 8/12. Last round there will be... Navara-McShane!!

In the C Group, almost everybody said Vocaturo had won 2 rounds before the end. Well, that was a mistake! Today young Grandmaster Nyzhnyk, 14 years old, has beaten Van Kampen in a school-like bishop ending, whereas Vocatura suffered a lost against Polish Junior Dariusz Swiercz.
That makes Vocaturo still leading with 8,5 with Nyzhnyk at 8. And guess what : last round will be Vocaturo-Nyzhnyk!!

To make it up to you, here are 10 games from the A Group you don't want to miss :
R3 : Nakamura - Shirov (nice Archangelsk)
R4 : Anand - Wang Hao (stunning sacrifice by Anand)
R5 : Smeets - Anand (flawless technik from the world champion)
R5 : Nepomniachtchi - Shirov (another brilliant Archangelsk)
R6 : Shirov - Kramnik (Kramnik puts fire on the board)
R6 : L'Ami - Nakamura (endgame lesson by the American)
R7 : Nakamura - Smeets (a true Botvinnik gambit)
R8 : Carlsen - Nakamura (good old Najdorf)
R9 : Kramnik - L'Ami (how to make chess easy)
R10 : Kramnik - Carlsen (endgame lesson by Carlsen)

http://www.tatasteelchess.com/

Friday, January 14, 2011

Wijk aan Zee starts on Saturday - and other things

Famous tournament Wijk aan Zee starts tomorrow with Carlsen, Anand, Aronian, Kramnik and so on. 3 closed tournaments with very interesting players.
http://www.tatasteelchess.com/tournament/participants/group/1

No time to update this blog this last month. I was too busy to play official games (and lost!) and with some websites, including the for-now-small www.chess-teaching.com.

Here is a New in Chess link to vote for the Novelty of the year 2010.