4 Más Rápido in Calatrava

Four players tied for first at the Villa de Cañada de Calatrava rapid tournament last weekend. (Sí sí, I'm muy behind this week.) Shirov, Fridman, I Sokolov, and Gelfand all finished with 7.5/9. Favorites Anand, Ivanchuk, Polgar and Mamedyarov were all in the chasing pack at 7. Not many games are available, sadly. Shirov won the title on system tiebreaks and also won clear first in the Fischerandom side event. As previewed in the first item on this event, Shirov was looking very good right from the start. Ivanchuk took the blitz side event. Anand declined to play in the side tournaments. Polgar was rolling along but lost to Fridman in a key 7th round game. A dubious novelty (8..Qc8) in a dubious line of the QID (7..Na6?!) landed Black in deep trouble very quickly. 12.Bh3! exposed the problem with the queen on c8.

Some of the game scores are truncated or wrong. Was Fridman-Shirov in the final round really a six-move draw? Seems unlikely, even if they are Latvian compatriots. (Speaking of Fridman, he and US women's champion Anna Zatonskih just had a baby girl. If you're into baby pictures, scroll down the blog page of the Dutch team of which Fridman is a member. Slipping into People Magazine mode, the couple have known each other least since 2003. USCF site has more.) I really hate it when so many games just disappear. Blitz, all right, and preserving shuffle chess games is practically contrary to their purpose. But elite rapid chess often produces interesting ideas and beautiful play. The players tend to like it when games don't go out because they can hoard a little information.