The Ukrainian supertournament at the Foros spa is in Yalta producing some odd games of mostly fighting chess. Credit the thermal waters or the strange time control? The official site has analysis and more from former colleague GM Mikhail Golubev. ChessBase is reproducing his reports with pictures. One of them shows FIDE prez Kirsan Ilyumzhinov chatting on one of those cell phones used by his voting delegates to send photos of their ballots so they could collect their bribes. Hey, it's not my story.
Local favorites Ponomariov and Karjakin are at the bottom of the table with 0.5/3. Karjakin lost to Shirov today after chewing a poison pawn on a2 that even Fritz would eschew. All six games were drawn in round two, several of them in short order, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of them contained considerable fight and interest. Smackdown averted.
Mamedyarov and the ever-unpredictable Bologan lead with 2.5. I'll never figure out how Nisipeanu managed to lose today's oppo-bishop endgame to Bologan. Volokitin and Harikrishna played one out to the bitter end with a logical draw. White made a lot more progress than I thought he'd be able to make though. Grischuk and Ivanchuk have drawn all their games so far. Karjakin's losing 32..c3??? against Bologan in round one is so bad I wonder if he thought White's bishop was on g2.
Comments
...c3?? is easily explained by black thinking Rxc3 Bh3 Rxd8 will lead to mate on the 1st row, forgetting that the rook, fresh from moving to d8, can interpose on d1.
Stranger things have happened in time troubles before.
Posted by: Alex Shternshain at June 19, 2006 20:05
Nice game between Mr Mamedyarov and Mr Areshchenko today. I haven't heard of the latter before this tournament while the former looks to be a star on the rise.
Posted by: Yuriy Kleyner at June 19, 2006 20:10
Yuriy, Areschenko is another widely known "star on the rise." I think he is about the same age as Mamedyarov (i.e. still eligible for World Junior, or at least, was eligible until this year). I think he also played in last year's Russian Championship Super-Final; and had to be very near super-GM level just to get in.
Posted by: Jon Jacobs at June 19, 2006 22:44
Jon Jacobs:
You are full of s*it. Areschenko is Ukrainian. How could he have played in the Russian Super Final ?
Posted by: peach at June 19, 2006 22:51
Jon, maybe you're confusing Areshchenko with Jakovenko?
Posted by: geeker at June 19, 2006 22:56
Christ, peach, can't someone just be wrong? Please be civil or work out your inarticulate hostility somewhere else.
Posted by: Mig at June 20, 2006 00:29
It is not hostility. I am not hostile towards everybody else. He always has this pedantic holier than thou attitude in the other threads. If you feel it is inappropriate, feel free to delete it as well as my current response.
Posted by: peach at June 20, 2006 00:45
Uh . . . Jon Jacobs is one of several posters here who has always been nice and not afraid to admit being in error. If you feel that he is somewhat paternal stylistically, that is no reason to curse him out. Honestly, there are better targets on here and elsewhere.
Posted by: Yuriy Kleyner at June 20, 2006 06:11
Go easy on peach, he's usually sensible, and not one to blindly parrot nonsense of the sort that Stern (the holiest of the holier-than-thous on Dirt) routinely posts about me on other threads. Peach probably just had some souring experience last night that worked its way into his comments.
Yeah, I realized my mistake about Areshchenko's nationality minutes after posting my comment, but I didn't feel it necessary to get out of bed to post a correction. I had confused the Russian Super-final with the FIDE World Cup, which was played around the same time. The latter was how I became aware of Areshchenko. (He eliminated Stripunsky and Balogh in the first 2 rounds, before being eliminated himself in round 3 by the eventual champion, Aronian.)
Posted by: Jon Jacobs at June 20, 2006 09:30
well, the "-enko"-s are easily confus-able, that's a scientific fact. reminds me of a dream I had, where Ponomariov, Kasimjanov, Mamedyarov, Radjabov, and Sadvakasov were disputing the title of "Most Exotic Chess Player Ever".
Posted by: Joseph Mutzenbacher at June 20, 2006 10:23
I think there is no disputing the title of "Worst Exotic Chess Dream Ever" :)
Posted by: Yuriy Kleyner at June 20, 2006 10:48
