We're in a bit of a lull after the frantic summer festivals and the start of the Topalov-Kramnik reunification world championship match on September 23 in Elista. The European Union Individual Championships has two rounds to go. The open event in Liverpool is headlined by Short and McShane, who are in the pack of leaders with 6/8. A few leagues are in motion, including the powerful Spanish "Honor Division" with Ivanchuk, Sasikiran, Volokitin, Vallejo, Bologan, and a few other names.
McShane-Short was played in the eighth round and reached an unusual material balance, White's rook, bishop, and two pawns versus Black's rook and seven pawns. Yes, seven. It finished in an honorable draw. Capablanca played this material balance as a tot in his famous 1901 match aganst Corzo. A ChessBase search reminds that Svidler-Vallejo also played it in an amazing game from their Leon, 2004 rapid semifinal match. It was Vallejo's only draw in the four games.
Speaking of unusual material, Ivanchuk beat Sasikiran in the Spanish team event's second round. Down the exchange, Sasi then gave up a knight to go down a rook with little in the way of compensation. Hard to say what he was looking at and he resigned not long afterwards. Weird. Lastly, Bologan made hash out of a drawn rook endgame against Nisipeanu. He must have been in time trouble to stay in the pin with 47.Kd3 instead of Kd2. The same game is worth a look for the middlegame combo by black and the mate trick at the end. Also note the "white to play and win" final move of Delchev-Giorgadze. Giorgadze struck back in the third round with a speculative piece sac against Pelletier that eventually won the day. Many fun games in this event. PGN downloads at the bottom of this page.
The heavily favored Intel - Tiendas UPI team led by Ivanchuk won despite losing a match. In November they will face the team that comes out of the second group, currently in action. C.A. Linex Magic is the heavy favorite with Aronian, Ponomariov, Shirov, and Karjakin. Tiviakov, Gelfand, and van Wely are also playing.
Mig,
I believe the European Union Individual Championships is 10 round event with 2 rounds to go.
Keep up the good work with your blog!
ICM
That was first group of the Spanish Team Championship. Second group is being played now (Aronian, Gelfand, Ponomariov, Shirov...) and the first two teams in each group will play the semifinal and final matchs in november.
Kramnik and Topalov delegations announced. Onischuk is a coach of Topalov.
http://www.fide.com/news.asp?id=1102
Looking at the respective teams, I thought of that little saying my mother taught me re washing powder when I was little: Much doesn't necessarily help much...
;o)
Since the title is September fun, hope the following is on topic. Extremely interesting article about a Chess event in Austria up on Chess base. Extremely interesting to me at any rate, because it features the man!
Which of the 5 "Bulgarian team members" is/are the sorcerer/s and/or clairvoyant/s ? According to Danailov, he/she/they have a very important role to play.
In contrast, the Russians have more appreciation for the cook on their team.