 "Chess (#1138)")
Evgeny Tomashevsky, aka "The professor", played the tournament of his life to win the Tbilisi Grand Prix with a round to spare. His score of 8/11 (+5, =6) came at a performance rating of 2900-plus. Dmitry Jakovenko (6.5) and Teimour Radjabov (6) were second and third.
There's one more GP to go. The top two qualify for the Candidates. Every GP participant plays three of the four GPs and the total points are aggregated (170 points for undivided first place, 140 for second, et cetera). Tomashevsky has a good shot since he leads the GP standings with 252 pts from two played. Fabiano Caruana has 230 from two, Hikaru Nakamura has 207 from two.
Other Candidates qualifiers (apart from Viswanathan Anand) will include two toppers from the World Cup and two top-rated players (averaged across January-December 2015). The host nation for the tournament will have a wild card. Caruana, Alexander Grischuk, Nakamura and others might get in on the high rating front as well.
The latest rating list shows how close the World Nos 2-8 are in Elo terms. Magnus Carlsen is far ahead of the pack at 2863, number 2 Caruana is 2802, and number 8 Wesley So is 2788. On the women's side, Hou Yifan (2686) takes over as number 1 after 26 years and counting. Judit Polgar became the highest rated woman player when she was all of 12 years old after she logged 12.5/13 playing for the Hungarian women (alongside elder sisters, Susan Polgar, aka Zsuzsa, and Zsófia Polgar) at the Thessaloniki Olympiad in 1988.
The European individual Championships is in play in Jerusalem. Ian Nepomniachtchi, Gabriel Sargissian, Alexander Motylev and Mateusz Bartel share the lead with 5 each after six rounds. As every sports buff knows, for political reasons, Israel is part of the European zone in sports such as chess, football and tennis (Palestine plays in West Asia). Several former Soviet Central Asian Republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) are geographically Asian and play in the Euro.
China and India are playing a match with a double-scheveningen format in Hyderabad (each player in one team plays every player in the other team twice). After two rounds, the match is tied 4-4, with one victory to each side.
The DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY, (White: Evgeny Tomashevsky vs Black: Baadur Jobava Tbilisi Grand Prix 2015) illustrates Tomashevsky's competence at handling tactical maelstroms. The Kt cannot be taken since 16.dxe5? Qxe5 hits a1 and e2.
White played 16.cxd5 Ng4 17.Qh3!? Bxd4? Black could try 17...Nxf2! 18.Qh4 Ng4! 19.dxe6 Bxd4+ 20.Kh1 Bxa1 21.Qxg4 f5 22.Qf3 and White may be marginally better.
The move inversion loses after 18.dxe6 Nxf2 19.Rxf2! fxe6 20.Qxe6+ Kh8 21.Bb2! - this kills the attack and leaves white a piece up after 21.--Bxb2 22.Rxf8+ Rxf8 23.Rf1 (1-0, 47 moves).
There's one more GP to go. The top two qualify for the Candidates. Every GP participant plays three of the four GPs and the total points are aggregated (170 points for undivided first place, 140 for second, et cetera). Tomashevsky has a good shot since he leads the GP standings with 252 pts from two played. Fabiano Caruana has 230 from two, Hikaru Nakamura has 207 from two.
Other Candidates qualifiers (apart from Viswanathan Anand) will include two toppers from the World Cup and two top-rated players (averaged across January-December 2015). The host nation for the tournament will have a wild card. Caruana, Alexander Grischuk, Nakamura and others might get in on the high rating front as well.
The latest rating list shows how close the World Nos 2-8 are in Elo terms. Magnus Carlsen is far ahead of the pack at 2863, number 2 Caruana is 2802, and number 8 Wesley So is 2788. On the women's side, Hou Yifan (2686) takes over as number 1 after 26 years and counting. Judit Polgar became the highest rated woman player when she was all of 12 years old after she logged 12.5/13 playing for the Hungarian women (alongside elder sisters, Susan Polgar, aka Zsuzsa, and Zsófia Polgar) at the Thessaloniki Olympiad in 1988.
The European individual Championships is in play in Jerusalem. Ian Nepomniachtchi, Gabriel Sargissian, Alexander Motylev and Mateusz Bartel share the lead with 5 each after six rounds. As every sports buff knows, for political reasons, Israel is part of the European zone in sports such as chess, football and tennis (Palestine plays in West Asia). Several former Soviet Central Asian Republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) are geographically Asian and play in the Euro.
China and India are playing a match with a double-scheveningen format in Hyderabad (each player in one team plays every player in the other team twice). After two rounds, the match is tied 4-4, with one victory to each side.
The DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY, (White: Evgeny Tomashevsky vs Black: Baadur Jobava Tbilisi Grand Prix 2015) illustrates Tomashevsky's competence at handling tactical maelstroms. The Kt cannot be taken since 16.dxe5? Qxe5 hits a1 and e2.
White played 16.cxd5 Ng4 17.Qh3!? Bxd4? Black could try 17...Nxf2! 18.Qh4 Ng4! 19.dxe6 Bxd4+ 20.Kh1 Bxa1 21.Qxg4 f5 22.Qf3 and White may be marginally better.
The move inversion loses after 18.dxe6 Nxf2 19.Rxf2! fxe6 20.Qxe6+ Kh8 21.Bb2! - this kills the attack and leaves white a piece up after 21.--Bxb2 22.Rxf8+ Rxf8 23.Rf1 (1-0, 47 moves).
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player