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Some of the tensions around the Olympiad remain with just a week to go. But one major issue has been sorted. Teams, which submitted late entries, will be allowed to play. This is a relief for the Russian women, who can defend their title.
However, there will be visa issues due to the Schengen procedure, especially for African countries which lack Norwegian embassies. Those teams must travel elsewhere to submit bioometrics and get visas. Fide President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, has published an open letter to the Norwegian organising committee about this. The Committee has also responded by open letter.
The "Open-ness" is due to a certain degree of paranoia and lack of trust. The incumbent Fide officials in Kirsan's camp feel that the Norwegians are on the side of his long-term critic and political opponent, Garry Kasparov.
Meanwhile, the Dortmund Super GM saw Fabiano Caruana nail down the title with a round to spare. The 21-year-old scored 5.5 from 7 (+4,=3) for a 2930 performance. His rating will climb above 2800 and he moves to #3. Given his excellent personal record against Magnus Carlsen, the Italian American must be harbouring serious title ambitions. Peter Leko and Georg Meier tied 2-3 with 4 points each. Ruslan Ponomariov and Vladimir Kramnik had minus scores.
At Biel. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the premier double-rounder. The French GM scored 6 from 10 (+3,-1,=6) for a 2777 performance. MVL stuttered in the end, losing the penultimate game to Anish Giri. Radoslaw Wojtaszek was second with 5.5 while Pendyala Harikrishna, Giri and Yifan Hou all scored 50 per cent. Hou lost in the last round to Hari. She could have tied MVL for first if she had won that game. The world champion's rating should edge up into the 2650 zone.
The third big tournament was the ACP Classic at Bergamo, Italy. This had the unusual feature of old time controls and adjournments. The time control was 150 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes/ 16 moves. That was phased out in the 80s with a switch to 120/40. Adjournments and sealed moves were abandoned in the 1990s after computer analysis and tablebases got really strong. Wesley So won the ACP with 4.5 from 6 ahead of Baadur Jobava (3.5).
THE DIAGRAM, BLACK TO PLAY (Caruana Vs Ponomariov, Dortmund 2014) is a technical position where black might be forced to drop material. The best defence could be 36...Rxg5 37. Rxg5 Qxg5 38. Qxc7+ Bb7 39. Qxf7 wiping out the king-side. The passive 36...Bb7 37.Qf6 Qxf6 38.gxf6 Kb8 39.Re7 Rf8 is lost due to white's superior activity.
Ponomariov tried 36.--- Be6? 37.g6 Rg7 38.gxf7 Bxf7 Now Caruana found the fantastic 39.Re7!! Qxe7 40.Ba6! Kxa6 41.Qa8# (1-0).
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
