The Sofia MTel ended in a grandstand finish. Magnus Carlsen led with 6 points going into the last and tenth round where he faced Alexei Shirov. Shirov was sharing second spot with Veselin Topalov (both 5.5). Topalov meanwhile, had black against Wang Yue.
Carlsen played a razor-sharp multiple pawn sacrifice in the Sveshnikov Sicilian. Shirov held the material and broke the attack to zoom past Carlsen. Topalov, who was expected to win against Wang was forced into giving perpetual check in almost equally sharp line of the Grunfeld where the Chinese GM had an extra rook. It is the first time that home boy Topalov has failed to win the MTel. Shirov, Carlsen and Topalov all three registered 2800+ performances.
This is a big win for Shirov who has been climbing back into the ranks of the elite after several years of indifferent form. The Spanish-Latvian GM may be no 5 in the next list — he was #24 this time last year. He joins Topalov (Nanjing winner), Grischuk (Linares) and Karjakin (Corus) at Bilbao in a super-tournament.
Almost on the heels of Sofia, there was the Odessa World Rapid Cup featuring a KO format with a prize fund of Euro 60,000 at stake. The field of 16 featured Grishchuk, Moiseenko, Movsesian, Eljanov, Karpov, Svidler, Gelfand, Jakovenko, Gashimov, etc. Grischuk was probably the favourite on the basis of his skills at this format. But Svidler knocked him, and the old lion Karpov out. In the 4-game final however, Boris Gelfand managed to put it across Svidler 2-0. But the result could easily have gone the other way by exactly the same margin.
At the Mumbai Mayor’s Cup, there was a fierce battle for first place with Alexander Areshchenko and Evgeny Miroshnichenko of the Ukraine tying with Magesh Chandran and Koneru Humpy. They all scored 9 from 11 games to edge ahead of a field of 415. At the Dubai Open, S. Kidambi scored his final GM norm by coming sixth in a field of 140 while Deep Sengupta won the Canberra International and scored his second GM norm ahead of a field of 76.
The diagram , WHITE TO PLAY (Svidler Vs Gelfand, ACP World Rapid 2009, Game IV, Final) represents a tragedy. Svidler had lost a complicated position in game III, where both had winning chances.
Svidler is completely winning here with a simple technical position arising after the forced capturing sequence of 56.Kxh1 Bxc4 57.Rxc4 Rxa5 58.Rb4. The white rook sits behind the b-pawn and black's rook is immobilised stopping it. The white king will walk up and either force a queen, or mop up the kingside. Instead Svidler played 56.Bxd5?? Ra1+ 57. Kh2 Ng3 (0-1) with Rh1# checkmate.