Azerbaijan beats Georgia in round 5 European Team Ch
27 October 2009, 12.35 CET | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
After beating Georgia in round 5 Azerbaijan is the sole leader with 10 match points at the European Team Championship in Novi Sad. Russia follows on second place with the same number of match points as Georgia. In the women section Georgia kept the lead after all eight games on the two top boards ended in a draw.
The 17th European Team Championship is organized by the European Chess Union and Serbia Chess Federation. The Championship is held in Novi Sad, Serbia (80 km northwest of the capital Belgrade and 280 km south of Budapest).
The dates are October 21th (day of arrival) until October 31th 2009 (day of departure). It’s a nine round Swiss played from October 22nd to 30th, without a rest day. The time control is 90 min. for 40 moves + 30 min. & 30 sec. increment.
Round 5
Their top board Radjabov lost his first game, to Jobava, but Azerbaijan collected two match points anyway against Georgia. It was a very nice win by Jobava, including a double exchange sacrifice; a slightly different theme that reminds of Seirawan’s Take My Rooks. Gashimov’s win against Mchedlishvili was typical for the Azeri GM, calculating deeply and finding new ideas in seemingly equal positions. Guseinov, who had twice lost with Black, now scored an important victory behind the black pieces; a model Volga/Benkö.
Russia is back in second place after a convincing victory over Israel. Tomashevsky outplayed Avrukh starting with 1.c4 while Svidler beat Sutovsky in a Caro-Kann. The strong reply 20…Ba8! completely refuted White’s aggressive intentions. Svidler’s finish was accurate and elegant at the same time.
Aronian also lost his first game – he didn’t survive a devastating attack by Bacrot. The Frenchman made the Anti-Moscow look like a King’s Gambit with Adolf Anderssen behind the white pieces. Sargissian played a similar role for his team like Guseinov did for Azerbaijan: he had started poorly too, with 1/3, but right when the team’s board one suffered his first loss, Sargissian scored his first win, to draw the match 2-2.
Spain-Serbia 1 and Netherlands-Czech Republic also ended in 2-2. Ups and downs for Jan Smeets, who lost a drawn endgame against Navara. The infamous 41st move seems to be the problem; 41.Rb1+ Ka2 41.b5 looks dead equal. Germany’s top board Naiditsch suffered his second loss in a row against Poland’s Socko but Meier could level the score with a fine win against Wojtaszek. Topalov had to be satisfied with a draw against Miladinovic, who adopted the on this level rare 5…exf6 Caro-Kann.
In the women section Ukraine and Georgia were very friendly to each other: all four games ended in quick draws. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought out a real match, but also these four games ended in draws. Russia beat Poland thanks to a win by Tatiana Kosintseva against Iweta Rajlich; in the same match Kosteniuk couldn’t convert a winning rook ending against Monica Socko.
All results round 5
Selection of games round 5
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Jobava beats Radjabov with the Four Pawns Attack
Russia back in second place now
Akopian and Aronian in deep thought against...
...Fressinet and Bacrot
Smeets-Navara, Stellwagen-Laznicka, L'Ami-Hracek and Werle-Babula
Spain's top boards Shirov and Vallejo
Kateryna Lahno vs Nana Dzagnidze
The Russian ladies: Alexandra Kosteniuk, Tatiana & Nadezhda Kosintseva and Marina Romanko
France's board 2 Sophie Milliet, the only player in the tournament left with a 100% score (4/4)
Photos courtesy of the official website
Links
- Official website
- Open section at Chess-Results
- Women section at Chess-Results
- Games in PGN: Open section | Women section
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The Women’s match between Ukraine-Georgia was a farce. 3 games drawn agreed in less than 20 moves and the fourth game was drawn agreed on 24th move. There must be rules against this and the corresponding team’s chess federation/coach must be handed financial penalties because it’s definitely the team’s manager/coaches who pre-plan such things.
Go Bacrot! That certainly made my day!
That makes me happy, a draw – Smeets vs Bacrot
Smeets today already played a draw against Bacrot. Even BEFORE the openingstheory starts!
The Marshall is known to be drawish these days … maybe next time we will see a game 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 shakehands?
Some people think that with best play chess end in a draw. Some time ago Peter Doggers wrote in an analysis of a game from Nanjing something like this. (White gets a better endgame but black can defend).
Why start a game after all?
Why start a game after all? Because you can get exiting games like Moro-Smeets.
Maybe Smeets was tired today, or ill, or still annoyed by losing a drawn position yesterday. Maybe he had slept badly because of that. People should not only concentrate on the short draws.
The subject is not Smeets (anymore) but the remark that the Marshall-gambit is a draw. I added that there is a good chance that chess is a draw.
If the fact that Marshall is a draw a good reason is for a quick draw, why should we play after all?
I never play a quick draw. Only when my positions is really bad and my opponent offers one (but this never happens ofcourse).
Quick draw have been the subject of forums before. And I think there isn’t one answer. Even rules who forbid quick draws don’t work. In five minutes you can play a lot of moves!
Bacrot – Aronian, what a fantastic game indeed! Perhaps Bacrot’s play was not correct. But it was so complicated that Aronian went astray. Reminds me of Tal as well (reminded Peter of Adolf Anderssen). Romantic chess. Or perhaps more adequately: poker chess, assuming Bacrot prepared this line very well and came to the conclusion that although it is not correct it gives very good practical chances in over-the-board play.
Aronian did not play 16…dxc3. Probably he saw 17.e6 Ne5 (17…fxe6?? 18.Bh5#) 18. e7. The queen has no place to go and after 18…Qxe7 19.Bxe7 Kxe7 20.bxc3 white is clearly better (although I am sure I would lose against Aronian).
Aronian played 16…c5 instead which seems to be the best move, giving space to the queen and not allowing the white queen to cover the d6 bishop. This move seems to keep the balance.
Bacrot’s 17.f4 again seems very speculative, taking risk to go for a win. Aronian could perhaps have improved with 19…h5 or 23…Rg7. After 23…Kg8 24.Rxf7 the game is over.
Peter wrote: “Akopian and Aronian in deep thought against…Fressinet and Bacrot”. And indeed the look on Fressinet’s face suggests he may have prepared this together with Bacrot.
Netherlands and France have drawn today at the ETC .
Bacrot and Smeets drew quickly (too quickly ? ) , then the decisive games were won by Feller and L’Ami respectively .
as a French , of course i was a bit disappointed that Cornette played the endgame so badly against L’Ami , he could draw easily by playing 55.Rb1 , letting Black take the a pawn and then play 56.Kg5! .
Whatever Black plays , White next move will cut the White king with Rb3 from the 2 connected passed pawns and White can never make any progress , it was a draw even though Rybka don’t know how to evaluate the position and say +1.50 . Basically White, plays Rb3 , Ra3, Rc3 Rd3 forever and Black cannot advance the pawns , cannot bring his King to support his pawns and his Rook can get nothing with checks , only to lose the pawn and after it is an easy draw . typical Karsten-Müller examples
Proably was double disappointing that we lost the win to Erwin L’Ami whose name suggests that he is probably a descendant of the huguenots protestants that left France a few centuries ago
Anyway it was still good to see both countries maintain a good position , as i lived in Den Haag for 4 years , so i have a soft spot for the Dutch (and their football team ) , it is still the country who gave a World champion Euwe and great players like Timman and who also host or fund prestigious tournaments
” and White cannot advance the pawns” . not Black sry
I was wondering, why a picture of Sophie Milliet?
@Jan: as the caption says, because she is (or rather was) the only player left with a perfect score. Actually no longer: yesterday Milliet lost against Lilit Mkrtchian – another woman that’s frequently pictured (maybe in the forthcoming report on round 6?
).
So it is clear that there may be other reasons for showing pictures of certain [female] players … .
Because she’s cute and kind and intelligent
@ Thomas: “as the caption says, because she is (or rather was) the only player left with a perfect score..” I think that Chessvibes wrote that caption with rauring laughter