“Snow Drops” lead against “Old Hands”
1 December 2009, 13.02 CET | Last modified: 8:49 | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
Three rounds so far have been played in this year’s edition of the Czech Coal Match, and the team of “Snow Drops” (Humpy Koneru, Anna Muzychuk, Kateryna Lahno and Jana Jackova) are in the lead: 7 points versus 5 for the “Old Hands” (Jan Timman, Vlastimil Hort, Robert Hübner and Viktor Kortchnoi).
The Czech Coal Chess Match 2009, a double-round Scheveningen match, takes place November 28 – December 5 at the Chrystal Palaca Hotel in Marianske Lazne (the former Marienbad), Czech Republic. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes and 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The tournament is organized by the Prague Chess Society.
Last year the “Snow Drops” versus “Old Hands” tournament was very even but nevertheless it was won by the quartet of men (Anatoly Karpov, Vlastimil Hort, Fridrik Olafsson and Wolfgang Uhlmann). Of the four ladies (Viktorija Cmilyte, Anna Ushenina, Jana Jackova and Katerina Nemcova) it was the Czech number one, Jana Jackova, who was the most successful. She managed to take down former world champion Anatoly Karpov already in the first round.
This year the “Snow Drops” team is a bit stronger, led by the world’s number 2 player Humpy Koneru, and after three rounds they are leading with a small margin: 7-5. And again it was Jana Jackova who started strongly; this time with the black pieces she defeated the now 78-year-old Viktor Kortchnoi in the first round. In the next round she would lose to Hübner with White, while Koneru defeated Hort. Yesterday Muzychuk also beat Kortchnoi, and by now we’ve already mentioned all decisive results so far in this friendly tournament.
Rounds start at 16:00 CET (except for the last round which starts at 13:00 CET), live here.
Games rounds 1-3
Game viewer by ChessTempo
The venue, like last year, is the Chrystal Palace Hotel in former Marienbad
Music at the opening ceremony...
...and the eight participants presenting themselves
Arbiter Pavel Votruba and guest and former FIDE President Fridrik Olafsson
Another famous guest: Mark Dvoretsky, together with organizer Pavel Matocha..
...and perhaps the most famous guest: 10th World Champion Boris Spassky
Round 1: Viktor Kortchnoi vs Jana Jackova...
...a win for the Czech lady
These organizers know how to set up a commentary room. There's the live boards, there's Chessbase and there's GM Marek Vokac, sometimes aided by Boris Spassky
Anna Muzychuk vs Jan Timman
Robert Hübner versus Kateryna Lahno
Timman and Lahno analyzing, Spassky kibitzing
Pavel Matocha with Bessel Kok
A unique experience for Humpy Koneru: advice from Olafsson, Dvoretsky, Timman and Spassky!
Photos by Vladimir Jagr, courtesy of the tournament website
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A propos of this event, there is a splendid Freudian slip on the blog of “Ctrl-V”, aka Susan Polgar. She entitles her report “Lassies (sic) and Old Timers”. Presumably she means lasses, unless she is trying to imply that the female players involved are all old dogs!!
A new high in awful haircuts…
So nice to see the veterans in action
@Michael: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lassies
@Bootvis: Now who exactly would you have in mind?
Bootvis probably means Huebner and Korchnoi – or himself??
“She entitles her report “Lassies (sic) and Old Timers”. Presumably she means lasses, unless she is trying to imply that the female players involved are all old dogs!!”
Maybe she refers to this:
“The Polgar phenomenon is well recorded. The youngest of three Hungarian sisters (all chess masters), Judit, like Zsuzsa and Sofia, was taught at home by their psychologist father, Laszlo (and mother, Klara), who planned their entire family as an experiment to test his controversial theory that geniuses are made, not born, which led to Dominic Lawson in his controversial book, The Inner Game, to cruelly (and unfairly) christen her “Lassie”, because she was no more than just a trained dog”
http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/event/linares2001/r04lin.html
At the tournament’s official site (http://www.praguechess.cz/en/index.php) it says “Lassies and Old Timers” in several places as well. So in any case Susan Polgar is not to blame for the introduction of the term “lassies”, lads…
@TeresaZ: Ah, so it is just Ctrl V living up to her nickname!
@Michael:
After looking more closely at the relevant web pages, I’m afraid I must agree with you: Susan Polgar’s “blog” at http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/12/lassies-and-old-timers.html is (as far as I have checked) a total copy of the text at http://www.praguechess.cz/en/index.php.
However, it seems that Susan is not alone in her use of Ctrl+V: compare the following passage from the official site with the 3rd paragraph of this very ChessVibes article:
Last year the Lassies versus Old Timers tournament was very even leveled , nevertheless it was won by the quartet of men (Anatolij Karpov, Vlastimil Hort, Fridrik Olafsson a Wolfgang Uhlmann). Out of the four Lasses ( Viktorije Cmilyte, Anna Ushenina, Jana Jackova a Katerina Nemcova) it was the Czech number one, Jan Jackova, who was perhaps the most successful. She managed to brought down in the first round of mini game the former world champion Anatolij Karpov.
(http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/12/lassies-and-old-timers.html)
Interestingly similar, I’d say, haha! But unlike Susan, ChessVibes has at least cleaned up the English a bit…
Oops: the last hyperlink in my previous comment should of course mention the official site, not Susan’s blog (although the content is the same anyway!). It seems that I at least am not very good at using Ctrl+V yet…
I admire Viktor Korchnoi for still playing at a high level at the age of 78, but I don’t like his personality.
Refusing to sign the score sheet or shaking hands after losing on time.
See video from Europe Echecs Rondes 3&4: Analyses des victoires féminines.
Victor is an old grumpy man, he should play in the Old people’s home and not in tournements. He’s absolute not a nice person. Hope the girls beat the shit out of him