Ivanchuk wins again
30 July 2007 11:29 AM CET | Last modified: 11:38 | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
Perhaps it’s a bit too early to start talking about it, already before the Wch in Mexico, but anway, Vassily Ivanchuk seems to have a decent chance to win his first Chess Oscar this year. He continued his amazing series of victories at the Montreal International where he finished first place in a strong round-robin a point clear. Nigel Short suffered the worst result ever in his professional chess career: 2 / 9.
We shouldn’t be too suprised when we see Ivanchuk suddenly on the no. 2 spot of October’s FIDE rating list. (At the moment his virtual rating is 2772.) My god what a summer he’s having! To me in Montreal his victory over Sutovsky was the most impressive:
Short started with 0 out of 4, when he drew with Sutovsky. Then he lost to Charbonneau, drew with his old rival Kamsky, and then luckily showed the world that he’s still capable of some good chess. He completely outplayed Eljanov with Black. But in the last round he had to suffer another defeat, in a very interesting King’s Gambit against Mark Bluvshtein:
The Englishman must have been very happy that the tournament was over. But then he got a phone call by Frederic Friedel (Chessbase), who insisted in finding the reason behind Short’s bad tournament. Well, then what you get is an accumulation of little grumbles and complaints about small irritations that, combined, led to his horrible tourney. But doesn’t everybody experience such a drag once, at the tail of a career?
Final standings:
1. Ivanchuk, Vassily g UKR 2762 7.0 2. Tiviakov, Sergei g NED 2648 6.0 3. Harikrishna, P g IND 2664 5.5 4. Eljanov, Pavel g UKR 2701 5.0 5. Kamsky, Gata g USA 2718 5.0 6. Sutovsky, Emil g ISR 2656 4.5 7. Miton, Kamil g POL 2648 3.5 8. Bluvshtein, Mark g CAN 2520 3.5 9. Charbonneau, Pascal g CAN 2503 3.0 10. Short, Nigel D g ENG 2683 2.0
about the virtual ratings, quoting a post on dailydirt:
‘Ivanchuk picked 14.5 pts in Foros and 9.7 in Montreal. But Anand lost only 1.3 pts in Dortmund, while Kramnik added 10 pts. Assuming none on them plays classical chess in august, Anand will be at 2791, Ivanchuk at 2786, and Kramnik at 2779.’
Thanks for this correction. Fortunately the conclusion that he might be 2nd on the new list still holds.
Even though Ivanchuk is a very strong player and a very fine person, his rating points are not against the very top player…
Anyway… congratulations to him!!!
Do you really think that Leko and Kramnik with their “safety first” approach to chess would win all of these tournaments like Ivanchuk does?
And if for some strange reason you think Ivanchuk cannot beat the elite players, have a look at this stupendous rapid win by Ivanchuk over Kramnik in which Kasparov said Chucky played like a genius.
[Event "Amber 2007 Rapid"]
[Site "Monaco"]
[Date "22-03-2007"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Kramnik"]
[Black "Ivanchuk"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2766"]
[BlackElo "2750"]
[WhiteCountry "RUS"]
[BlackCountry "UKR"]
[Board "2"]
[Time "(0:00/0:01)"]
[Analysis ""]
[Match "1"]
[Game "1"]
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 O-O 5. a3 Bxc3 6. Qxc3 d6 7. b4 a5 8.
Bb2 e5 9. g3 axb4 10. axb4 Rxa1+ 11. Bxa1 b5 12. cxb5 Bd7 13. e3 Qc8 14.
Be2 Qb7 15. d3 Bxb5 16. O-O Nc6 17. Rb1 Qa6 18. Qb3 Ra8 19. Nd2 Qa2 20. Bc3
Qxb3 21. Rxb3 Ra2 22. Bf1 Nd5 23. Bg2 Nce7 24. Bb2 Ba4 25. Ra3 Rxb2 26.
Rxa4 Nb6 27. Ra7 Rxd2 28. Rxc7 Kf8 29. Rb7 Rd1+ 30. Bf1 Nec8 31. b5 Ra1 32.
Rc7 g6 33. h4 Rb1 34. d4 exd4 35. exd4 Ne7 36. Kg2 h5 37. Rb7 Nbd5 38. Rb8+
Kg7 39. Rd8 Rb2 40. Kg1 Nf5 41. Bc4 Rb1+ 42. Kh2 Nf6 43. f3 Rb2+ 44. Kh3
Nxd4
0-1
Well Done Ivanchuk, you played a blinder!!