It's not always easy keeping track of all the super tournaments that are going on in the world. Apart from the US Championship and the M-Tel Masters in Sofia, the Sahovski Klub Bosna, Sarajevo, is currently holding its traditional tournament; a strong double round-robin featuring attractive players such as Pavel Eljanov, Sergey Movsesian and Wang Hao.

By Arne Moll

For the Dutch fans there's also Ivan Sokolov playing (although, unfortunately, not too well), the Indians will look forward to games by Pentala Harikrishna, while the local fans can cheer for 22-year old Borki Predojevic, who already has obtained a more than respectable rating of 2652. And what's more: so far Predojevic is doing excellently - after 8 rounds, he's in a fine second place behind Pavel Eljanov.

So far, it has also been the tournament of the 1.d4 openings: it featured in 18 out of 24 games! The only Sicilian until now was played yesterday, but the game was quickly drawn. With 1.d4, White has been quite successful so far. Black's most frequent choice was the Slav Defence, but it has performed a meagre 32% so far - and perhaps this is not only a confirmation of the ChessVibes Openings team's recent suggestion that the 4...a6 Slav is in a bit of trouble, but that the entire opening needs a check-up.

One thing is certain, though: Pavel Eljanov is in great shape, scoring 6 out 8 so far. The Ukranian grandmaster hasn't really been in danger so far, and he has, for amongst others, beaten Sokolov with both Black and White in attractive fashion very quickly - see the comments in the games section. Other highly recommended games are Movsesian-Predojevic and, especially, Movsesian-Wang Hao. Just look at the position after White's 17th move! In these games, we can see the Slovakian combining deadly pressurizing with concrete calculation power. By the way, Predojevic's victory with White over Movsesian is also worth replaying: the Exchange Slav is not as boring as many may think!

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Game viewer

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The last two rounds are scheduled for today and tomorrow, and you can watch it here live if the transmission works (so far, I haven't been too lucky, but perhaps that shouldn't come as a surprise anymore).

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN