Reports | January 25, 2013 12:06

Fifteen players still on 100% in Gibraltar after three rounds

Fifteen leaders in Gibraltar after three rounds

Fifteen players started with three wins at the Gibraltar Masters, among them favorites like Michael Adams and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The second and third rounds saw a few more upsets, most notably the loss of Radek Wojtaszek of Poland against Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria.

Two Knights Game at Gibraltar beach | Photos © Zeljka Malobabic, Monroi & ChessVibes

Event Tradewise Chess Festival | Chess-results | PGN via TWIC
Dates January 21st-31st, 2013
Location Gibraltar, UK
System 10-round Swiss, different groups
Players Top players in the Masters include Vassily Ivanchuk, Gata Kamsky, Michael Adams, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, David Navara, Alexei Shirov, Le Quang Liem, Nigel Short and Nikita Vitiugov
Rate of play 100 minutes for 40 moves followed by 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds increment for each move starting from the first move.

After a number of draws in the first round, an even bigger upset occurred in the second round of the Gibraltar Masters. England's Nigel Short, last year's winner, suffered a loss against Ismael Teran Alvarez. The Spanish IM felt that Black's c5-c4 was too slow, and as soon as he got his pawn on f6 he felt he was winning.

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IM Ismael Teran Alvarez beats Nigel Short in an excellent game

Mickey Adams played a model game with Black against the London System, such a popular opening at club level but not very suitable against a 2700 player who has a positional playing style anyway.

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Sven Telljohann vs Michael Adams in round 2

In the third round another favorite suffered his first loss. Radek Wojtaszek of Poland went down against Antoaneta Stefanova who didn't really give her opponent a chance in fact.

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Antoaneta Stefanova beat Radek Wojtaszek

Interestingly, three English players played the English (1.c4) in this round: Mickey Adams, Nigel Short and Gawain Jones, and they all won. Here's an instructive rook ending:

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The playing hall with Nigel Short watching Ju Wenjun's game

Joe Gallagher, a poker professional who rarely plays chess these days, remained true to his style against Le Quang Liem. The ending should have been a draw but time pressure got him to play inaccurately.

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We'll quote from the round report by John Saunders as we hadn't mentioned the following details yet:

One of the joys of coming to Gibraltar is to escape the arctic winter being experienced further north in Europe and elsewhere in the world. I’ve had fun taunting my UK Facebook friends with pictures of people eating outside, beautiful sunrises and the like. But the downside of the severe weather in Europe was that it cost us some competitors because of the flight cancellations in the UK and France. One of casualties was French grandmaster Marie Sebag who had been hoping to play here for the first time but was unable to travel from France.

Another top woman player who we feared might not be able to come was reigning European Women’s Champion Valentina Gunina, who had just had an operation to extract her wisdom teeth and was told she shouldn’t travel. But Valentina was determined to come and both her chess and her health are doing fine here. She’s on 2/2 and is going to have her stitches removed [on Friday morning].

Again we'll mention that tournament is providing live online commentary by GM Simon Williams (ENG) and IM Irina Krush (USA) which can be followed here.

Gibraltar Masters 2013 | Round 3  standings

Rk. Title Name FED Rtg Pts. TB1 rtg+/-
1 GM Adams Michael ENG 2725 3.0 3220 4.6
2 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime FRA 2711 3.0 3208 4.6
3 GM Le Quang Liem VIE 2705 3.0 3204 4.7
4 GM Vitiugov Nikita RUS 2694 3.0 3199 4.9
5 GM Yu Yangyi CHN 2688 3.0 3191 4.8
6 GM Iturrizaga Eduardo VEN 2650 3.0 3181 5.6
7 GM Stefanova Antoaneta BUL 2516 3.0 3176 10.6
8 GM Tkachiev Vladislav FRA 2650 3.0 3160 5.1
9 GM Jones Gawain C B ENG 2632 3.0 3148 5.2
10 GM Ehlvest Jaan USA 2603 3.0 3143 5.9
11 GM Swiercz Dariusz POL 2627 3.0 3142 5.2
12 GM Salgado Lopez Ivan ESP 2606 3.0 3120 5.1
13 GM Kulaots Kaido EST 2587 3.0 3111 5.5
14 GM Dzagnidze Nana GEO 2555 3.0 3096 6.0
15 GM Jakubiec Artur POL 2518 3.0 3024 4.8
16 GM Navara David CZE 2710 2.5 2684 -0.3
17 IM Teran Alvarez Ismael ESP 2399 2.5 2682 11.2
18 GM Georgiev Kiril BUL 2643 2.5 2646 0.6
19 GM Al-Sayed Mohammed QAT 2507 2.5 2637 0.0
20 GM Kamsky Gata USA 2740 2.5 2634 -2.2
21 GM Sutovsky Emil ISR 2684 2.5 2633 -1.1
22 GM Ivanchuk Vassily UKR 2758 2.5 2631 0.0
23 GM Jussupow Artur GER 2611 2.5 2630 1.1
24 FM Fenollar Jorda Manuel ESP 2325 2.5 2613 17.1
25 GM Fridman Daniel GER 2667 2.5 2605 -1.3
26 GM Sandipan Chanda IND 2590 2.5 2602 0.9
27 IM Oparin Grigoriy RUS 2478 2.5 2599 5.2
28 GM Muzychuk Anna SLO 2582 2.5 2596 1.0
29 IM Muzychuk Mariya UKR 2471 2.5 2582 4.8
30 GM Womacka Mathias GER 2442 2.5 2565 5.2
31 FM Arvola Benjamin NOR 2309 2.5 2558 15.0
32-33 GM David Alberto ITA 2599 2.5 2549 -1.0
32-33 IM Ibarra Jerez Jose Carlos ESP 2538 2.5 2549 0.8
34 FM Villuendas Valero Adrian ESP 2301 2.5 2546 14.9
35 GM Felgaer Ruben ARG 2557 2.5 2544 0.0
36 GM Gordon Stephen J ENG 2533 2.5 2525 0.2
37 IM Zhou Yang-Fan ENG 2439 2.5 2523 4.1
38 GM Cmilyte Viktorija LTU 2515 2.5 2516 0.5
39 IM Melia Salome GEO 2403 2.5 2508 5.1
40 GM Harika Dronavalli IND 2514 2.5 2476 -0.7
41 GM Maze Sebastien FRA 2546 2.5 2474 -1.3
42 IM Larino Nieto David ESP 2497 2.5 2430 -1.2
43   Pinho Paulo POR 2128 2.0 2563 23.4
44-45 GM Wojtaszek Radoslaw POL 2723 2.0 2547 -5.4
44-45 FM Georgiadis Nico SUI 2369 2.0 2547 11.3
46 FM Forsaa Espen NOR 2305 2.0 2517 12.3
47 GM Kanep Meelis EST 2512 2.0 2501 0.7
48-49 GM Shirov Alexei LAT 2708 2.0 2493 -6.5
48-49 WGM Ju Wenjun CHN 2505 2.0 2493 0.6
50 GM Gallagher Joseph G. SUI 2499 2.0 2486 0.6

The list of participants includes highly experienced GMs like Jaan Ehlvest (USA)...

...and Artur Jussupow (Germany)...

and, as always, a high number of strong female players like Anna Muzychuk (Slovenia)...

...Elisabeth Paehtz (Germany)...

...Tania Sachdev (India)...

 

...WGM Ju Wenjun (China)...

\

...and Anna Zatonskih (USA)...

...who gave a masterclass on Wednesday night which can still be watched online

A charming Zatonskih explaining her chess to Stuart Conquest and the rest of the world

The "Four Queens" team (Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Salome Melia, Elisabeth
Paehtz, Valentina Gunina) during the team blitz event on Thursday night

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Peter Doggers's picture
Author: Peter Doggers

Founder and editor-in-chief of ChessVibes.com, Peter is responsible for most of the chess news and tournament reports. Often visiting top events, he also provides photos and videos for the site. He's a 1.e4 player himself, likes Thai food and the Stones.

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evgen's picture

evgen

3 months 4 weeks ago

would be nice to see a more detailed game report and games as well.

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