Superbet Rapid & Blitz: Day 3 Recap
The rapid portion of Superbet Rapid and Blitz Poland came to an end with Vishy Anand winning the rapid section, though his two points lead was diminished to one after the Indian legend conceded his first loss in the last round to his closest rival GM Richard Rapport. Tomorrow will see the first round of blitz games, with nine games lined up to be played. With eighteen points up for grabs, it is safe to say that the top six players after the rapid portion have good chances to win the event. Round 7 Vishy Anand began the day with another victory in style. After a calm Scotch Game, Anand won pair of Bishop in exchange for a slightly inferior pawn structure. Anand demonstrated his trademark tactical wit and seized the initiative. Gavrilescu realized things are going wrong too late and Anand won the game in style, moving to a whopping 13/14 points. Such results may suffice in any other tournament to claim the Rapid portion but only if there is no Richard Rapport in it! The Hungarian GM posted his fifth consecutive victory after outplaying Polish GM Radek Wojtaszek from the White side of an offbeat Sicilian. With this result, it was apparent that the race for winning the rapid part over the next two days would be between Anand and Rapport. Richard Rapport showing his class | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes Levon Aronian did not display Houdini-like play this time as he made the most out of tactical errors of his opponent, Anton Korobov, who happened to have an off day at the office. Fabiano Caruana did not want to make a quick draw against Wesley So’s sound handling of the Italian Game and ended up being in a worse and close to losing position after taking a pawn at the cost of weakening his king. Wesley So had an advantage both on the clock and on the board but did not deliver the finishing punch on a number of occasions. Consequently, Caruana made the most out of his chances and gradually neutralized Black’s decisive attack into a manageable initiative. The players continued the game for sometimes but it was clear that a draw is bound to happen and such results were reached on move 92. Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Kirill Shevchenko pursued a well-known theoretical line in Chebanenko Variation of Slav Defense. Shevchenko appeared well prepared and he never had a problem in this game. Yet, under time pressure he had to concede to a Rook vs Rook and Bishop endgame where he needed to play another fifty moves to hold the game to a draw. In concentration mode – GM Kirill Shevchenko | Photo Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes Round 8 The key battles of this round were between the leader Vishy Anand against Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So against Anand’s closest contender, Richard Rapport. Anand and Caruana entered a heavily theoretical battle in Petroff Defense, the very opening Caruana adapted as his ‘pet’ line against the world champion Magnus Carlsen in the 2018 world championship match. The player lashed out their first fifteen moves and then Anand went for 16.Bxd6. The game transposed to a game of Anand against the Chinese GM Yu Yangyi from 2019. Caruana played the best possible defense and that left Anand with no choice but to force a draw with a perpetual check. You know you are doing it right when a draw is somewhat disappointing. GM Vishy Anand in focus mode. | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes While the Anand-Caruana game was somewhat uneventful, So-Rapport was a thrilling encounter. The Hungarian, once again, employed a sideline in King’s Indian defense and Wesley So responded in an aggressive fashion. The game was complicated but Wesley So blundered with 22.a4??, after which, Rapport demonstrated a great understanding of the position’s dynamic and brought the game to a winning point. But the reason we love this quicker time control is the drama and unpredictability. When 43…Bd7 was the only winning move Rapport threw the game with 43…Qe6?? After which Wesley So’s attack on the seventh rank was unstoppable. Rapport soon resigned and with this result, Vishy Anand secured the top spot with still one round to go. Go big or go home! Wesley So, seconds before his game against Richard Rapport | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes Speaking of drama, the two youngest GM’s in the tournament, Shevchenko and Gavrilescu provided the most fun and exciting moves in today’s head-to-head encounter. Shevchenko adapted the same King’s Indian attack that Rapport had employed the other day against Gavrilescu. Confident in his preparation, the young Romanian responded with the same setup. The choice proved fruitful as Gavrilescu achieved a winning position. Nevertheless, time pressure proved to be the decisive factor one more time. After the advantage went from hand to hand a couple of times Kirill Shevchenko showed his tactical accuracy with a few seconds on the clock and ultimately emerged victorious. Radek Wojtaszek demonstrated the reason why people are wary of the mainline of Najdorf Sicilian with his exemplary win over Anton Korobov. In a short-castle version of Najdorf Wojtaszek attacked White’s center before Korobov even manages to start any attack on the kingside. The Polish GM soon secured two pawns under his belt and went on to win the endgame with ease. The game between Levon Aronian and Jan-Krzysztof Duda could have been a draw at any point should the players wish to make one. In an opposite-color bishop middlegame, the opponnets refrained from solid ways to make a draw and entered a topsy-turvy bishop and rook endgame with a few minutes on the clock. Duda had an easier task and obtained a winning position after Aronian erred. But the local hero let go of it the first time until Aronian made a mistake again and this time the Pole’s a-pawn proved too strong and Duda scored a crucial victory to move into third place for
FIDE sponsors participation of African chess talents in Sharjah Championships 2022
In March of 2022, FIDE Zones 4.1, 4.2, and 4.5 held their Chess Championships 2022, and these tournaments were all financially supported by FIDE. One of the prizes stipulated in the invitation was that winners, once they met a certain rating level, would be eligible to participate in the Sharjah Masters/Challengers Chess Championships, UAE. WFM Luzia Pires and FM Calvin Klaasen | Photo: Adnane Nesla FIDE, via the PDC, is happy to announce that it will sponsor the airfare and accommodation for the following players, based on their exceptional performances, to take part in this event: Zone 4.1 FM Ilyass Msellek – Morocco Zone 4.5 FM Calvin Klaasen – South Africa Zone 4.5 WFM Luzia Pires – Angola Zone 4.2 Toritsemuwa Ofowino – Nigeria Zone 4.2 IM Mariano Ortega – Cape Verde. IM Mariano Ortega (pictured right) | Photo: Adnane Nesla This sponsorship forms part of the $100,000 allocations to each of the continents of Africa, America, Asia, and Europe in 2020, 2021, and 2022 respectively. Continents have primarily used these funds for chess development in the areas of tournament organization and participation, capacity building, chess in education, and other special projects. FIDE wishes the players the best of luck and remains committed to developing chess on the African Continent and all continents!
Superbet Rapid & Blitz: Day 2 Recap
The second day of Superbet Rapid and Blitz Poland did not disappoint the tournament fans as day 2 was filled with exciting games and rapid action. The day came to an end with GM Vishy Anand continuing to maintain his two-point lead going to the last day of the rapid portion. The player of the day was undoubtedly GM Richard Rapport, who won all of his games which allowed him to secure the sole second place on the leaderboard. Round 4 Fans were curious to see what GM Viswanathan (“Vishy”) Anand’s form would entail on day 2. After all, Rapid and Blitz chess play is known for its unpredictable dynamic, where the players have a hard time maintaining consistent form throughout an event. That, at least for now, is not the case for Vishy. The five-time World Champion opened the day with a win over young Ukrainian GM Kirill Shevchenko. After Shevchenko went astray in his opening play of Sveshnikov-Pelican, Anand demonstrated impeccable technical accuracy and won the game with ease. “I have it under control!” – Five-time World Champion and the leader of the event, Vishy Anand | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes GM Richard Rapport played an off-beat setup of King’s Indian Attack against GM David Gavrilescu where the latter played the middlegame inaccurately and ended up with poorly placed minor pieces. This enabled Rapport to gradually build a kingside attack against which Gavrilescu did not find a proper response given the time pressure. The game ended with a typical king hunt in Rapport’s favor. The Polish Derby between Radek Wojtaszek and Jan-Krzysztof Duda was a tense one. Duda employed the Hippopotamus setup but the game transposed to some form of Ruy Lopez. A close battle ensued and when it seemed that the game might end in a draw, Wojtaszek made a final blunder in time pressure and Duda swiftly scored a full point. With this win, Duda moved in sole second behind Anand. Friends and compatriots. GM Radek Wojtaszek (left) against GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda (right) | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes GM Anton Korobov did not gain anything out of his English Opening against GM Fabiano Caruana. The players tried a few plans here and there but a draw was in the cards for the most part of the game and the game ended in a draw with a perpetual check. GM Wesley So and GM Levon Aronian played a well-known line in Catalan Opening where the game simplifies into a balanced ending. Wesley So created some interesting imbalance by sacrificing an exchange and later balanced the material by winning two pawns. While it seemed that So was outplaying his experienced opponent, Aronian fought hard and took advantage of So’s last-minute miss to save another game to a draw. Wesley So, seconds before his game against Levon Aronian | Photo Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes Round 5 All eyes were on the game between Levon Aronian and Vishy Anand in Round 5. Aronian chose 1.e4, something he has begun employing more often these days. A promise of a fighting game was hinted at when Anand refrained from the typical recapture 15…dxe5 for a more dynamic 15…Rxe5. However, Aronian blundered away the next move with 16.Nc4??. Anand is still in too good of a form to miss tactical shots like 16…Nxe4! followed by 17..Nxf2! Vishy subsequently went on to win the game against Aronian in only 24 moves! Houdini was not in the office this round and unfortunately, the blunder was too big to be remedied for Levon Aronian | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Bryan Adams Jan-Krzysztof Duda has been in a good shape so far but he mysteriously erred from a White side of an Italian Game, where an abundance of theoretical knowledge already exists. Wesley So seized the initiative and while Duda’s responses were fine at times, he began making mistakes due to the difficult nature of the moves he had to make. Wesley So demonstrated a pleasant technical play at the end and eventually won the game. The Ukrainian Derby saw young Kirill Shevchenko in the driving seat right out of the opening. Anton Korbov’s responses did not appear to suffice but in a severe time pressure Shevchenko found it too difficult to deal with the position’s complex nature and bailed out into a slightly better ending with marginal winning chances, after which the game dully ended in a draw. Kirill Shevchenko is making the most of this unique experience at the Grand Chess Tour by playing the sharpest chess! | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes The game between David Gavrilescu and Radek Wojtaszek was somewhat uneventful. The players seemed cautious after their start at the event and the game was a draw in a Knight endgame without any incident. This secured the first point for the young Gavrilescu at this event. The last game of the round was Richard Rapport’s win over Fabiano Caruana. In an off-beat line of French-Winawer where White is objectively better, Caruana spent too much time in search of a decisive advantage and ended up playing a good part of the game with less than a minute on the clock. The American also stubbornly turned down a draw by repetition in a couple of moments and once he missed a few resources of Black’s position, he was too short on time to save the game and Rapport converted his advantage with relative ease. This victory moved Rapport into second place and only three points behind the tournament leader, Vishy Anand. “Cool shirts and cool play” – Richard Rapport entertains the audience and spectators on and off the board | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes Round 6 In the last round of the day, the leader, Vishy Anand, saw himself facing the French Defense against the host’s favorite, Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The Indian legend went for the same Advanced Variation that he chose while playing against Anton Korobov in Round 3. This time a more