English grandmaster Nigel Short won the 10th Tradewise Chess Festival in Gibraltar on Thursday after beating Hou Yifan of China in a blitz playoff. Both players had finished on 8/10.

17-year-old Hou Yifan was already assured of the top Woman’s Award of £10,000, irrespective of what would happen in the last round. She was lone leader on 7.5/9, and assured of some sort of open prize as well as the U18 prize! On the last day, all eyes were on Gibraltar to see if Hou Yifan could also claim the first prize of £20,000.

Round 10

In the final round Hou Yifan drew with White against Shakhiyar Mamedyarov in a rather nice game.

PGN string

Mickey Adams, who had been leading the tournament until the 8th round, had to play with Black in the last two rounds. He drew both games, on Thursday against Viorel Bologan, who seemed to have a technically winning ending.

PGN string

The other two players who were trailing by half a point were Krishnan Sasikiran and Nigel Short. The Englishman didn't hold back and played the Benoni. He won a good game where he showed better tactical vision than his opponent.

PGN string

Emil Sutovsky won a queen ending that was theoretically drawn, but very difficult to hold over the board.

PGN string

Another nice last-round pairing was Judit Polgar vs. Viktor Korchnoi!

PGN string

A truly fantastic game was played by Emanuel Berg - the Swedish grandmaster beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a mere 29 moves with a queen sacrifice:

PGN string

The ever-creative Emanuel Berg sac'ed a queen against Vachier-Lagrave. Game of the tournament?

Playoff

This meant that Hou Yifan and Nigel Short had finished on shared first place, with 8/10 (see below). Traditionally, in such cases the Gibraltar tournament is decided in a playoff. Hou Yifan and Short played two games with 10 minutes on the clock, and 5 seconds increment per move.

In the first game Hou Yifan missed an excellent chance, after Short blundered in the middlegame. Both players missed an intermediate moves, and Short then won convincingly. In the second game the Chinese had to go all or nothing, and it became nothing. Well, the half point was worth as much as nothing.

Here are the two games, and the video commentary with GM Simon Williams and GM Mickey Adams:

PGN string

PGN string

Tradewise Chess Festival | Masters | Round 10 (final) standings (top 40)