2023 Superbet Chess Classic: Day 6 Recap
All five games were drawn in Round 6 as Fabiano Caruana let Alireza Firouzja off the hook, missing a chance to increase his lead, while Wesley So stunningly repeated moves against Ding Liren in a nearly winning position. With three rounds left to play Caruana remains in clear first with 4.0/6, while Firouzja, So, and Rapport are all tied for second with 3.5. DEAC – GIRI | ½-½, 34 moves A positional line of the Najdorf saw Giri tank for more than 30 minutes out of the opening before uncorking the surprising novelty 11…a5. Deac responded naturally with 12.a4 and stood a bit better for most of the game, but without a clear way to play on he decided to repeat moves shortly before the first time control. Giri needed some serious time in the opening, but eventually found his footing. | Photo courtesy of Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes VACHIER-LAGRAVE – RAPPORT | ½-½, 34 moves A Winawer French developed into a heavy strategic battle, as Rapport castled queenside while Vachier-Lagrave put his king on d2. While it was MVL who had the space advantage, he couldn’t make much progress as Rapport’s pieces were placed optimally to create counterplay. Eventually Vachier-Lagrave tried a sharp winning attempt by abandoning his queenside in order to create a passed pawn on the kingside, but precise defense by Rapport allowed him to force a perpetual thanks to his active queen. After 18.Kd2, the position was tremendously complicated. Another draw for Rapport, who remains tied for second. | Photo courtesy of Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes CARUANA – FIROUZJA | ½-½, 45 moves In a symmetrical Grunfeld Caruana emerged with a clear plus in the middlegame, as most of his pieces were more active than their counterparts. As the players traded down into the endgame things didn’t get any easier for Firouzja, who was stuck passively in a rook and knight ending, with Caruana’s rook posted on the 7th rank. But on the 41st move Caruana let his entire advantage slip, allowing Firouzja to challenge White’s rook on the 7th and simply equalize immediately. Here 39.h4, followed by g3-g4-g5 would have posed serious problems for Black. Instead Caruana played 39.Nf7+ Kg8 40.Nd6 f5 41.Nc4?, which allowed 41…Rf7! helping Black to hold. A serious missed opportunity for Caruana, who had a chance to take a full-point lead. | Photo courtesy of Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes NEPOMNIACHTCHI – DUDA | ½-½, 36 moves Facing his own opening, the Petroff Defense, Nepomniachtchi played quite quickly out of the gate to put pressure on Duda, but couldn’t seem to get more than a symbolic advantage with the slightly more active pieces. Despite having a weak pawn on c6, Duda put pressure on White’s isolated d4-pawn in order to hold the balance, and eventually Nepo had nothing better to do than to repeat the position. Duda was under some difficulties today, but managed to hold. | Photo courtesy of Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes DING – SO | ½-½, 40 moves In what was the wildest game of the day, Ding played rather ambitiously in an English Opening, looking to claim a lot of space at the cost of his development. But So reacted quite energetically, blasting open the center while White’s king was still in the middle of the board. A highly tactical battle ensued which saw So sacrifice his queen for a rook and two pieces, but then to the shock of commentators he decided to repeat moves and force a draw in a position where he was clearly better. A miraculous escape for Ding, who was on the ropes early on. | Photo courtesy of Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes The 2023 Superbet Chess Classic continues Saturday, May 13, with tournament action live starting at 7:20 AM CT with Grandmaster commentators Yasser Seirawan, Var Akobian, Cristian Chirila and International Master Nazi Paikidze on grandchesstour.org and on the Saint Louis Chess Club’s YouTube and Twitch.tv channels. Text: IM Kostya Kavutskiy Photos: Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour and Spectrum Studios; Credits available on Flickr. Further Information:Web: GrandChessTour.org | Twitter: @GrandChessTourInstagram: @GrandChessTour | Facebook: @GrandChessTour#GrandChessTour#SuperbetChessClassic Venue: Grand Hotel Bucharest, Bucharest, RomaniaMay 6 – May 15, 2023 Press Contact:press@grandchesstour.org Livestream:GrandChessTour.org
Andras Adorjan (1950-2023)
FIDE is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of GM Andras Adorjan in his 74th year of age after a long and serious illness. Born Andras Jocha in 1950 (he adopted his mother’s maiden name Adorjan in 1968), Adorjan showed promise early on and, in 1969, became the European Junior Champion (Groningen). The same year he finished runner-up in the World Junior Chess Championship (Stockholm) to Anatoly Karpov. In 1970 he was awarded the IM title and three years later became GM after jointly winning the Hungarian championship. His second and only outright victory in the national championship came in 1984. Adorjan reached his peak in the late 1970s. At the Riga Interzonal (1979), he tied for third place with his compatriot Zoltán Ribli (winning two last games against Bent Larsen and Tony Miles) and qualified for the Candidates after drawing the tiebreaker match (+1 −1 =2). At the Candidates, he narrowly lost his quarter-final match to Robert Huebner. Andras had an excellent record in team competitions. He was a part of the legendary Hungarian team at the Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires (1978) that wrestled the gold medal from the Soviet team dominating this competition from 1952 to 1974. As a coach, Adorján worked with Garry Kasparov and Peter Leko helping them prepare for World Championship matches. Known as one of the leading experts in the Grünfeld Defence, he influenced Kasparov and Leko in playing this opening. In later years, Adorján concentrated on writing, becoming renowned for his series of books advocating the cause for black side – Black is OK, Black is Still OK, and Black is OK Forever. FIDE extends its sincere condolences to Andras Adorjan’s family, friends, and loved ones. Photo: Dutch National Archive
1st International Schools Chess Festival in Ploiesti, Romania, announced
ISCU and FIDE, together with the Romanian Chess Federation, Ploiesti municipality and Prahova County Council, Prahova Chess County Association and Romanian Education Ministry, invite schools to participate in the 1st edition of the International Schools Chess Festival. The event will take place from July 3-9 in the Culture Palace in the city of Ploiesti, Romania. Any FIDE member federation and any FIDE continental federation can register school teams for the competition. In addition, schools can directly register teams to participate. Each team representing a school shall consist of four players – 2 boys and 2 girls. Players must have FIDE ID and shall not have reached the age of 12 before January 1, 2023. The event schedule: 3 July Arrival Day 4 July 10:00 Captains meeting 4 July 15:00 Opening 4 July 15:30 Round I 5 July 10:00 Round 2 5 July 16:00 Round 3 6 July Various activities Free day 7 July 10:00 Round 4 7 July 16:00 Round 5 8 July 10:00 Round 6 8 July 16:00 Round 7 8 July 20:00 Closing ceremony 9 July Departure Day FIDE established a special award for the competition winner: 1st ranked team will be eligible for a travelling grant and accommodation at the World Schools Team Championship in Kazakhstan, 3-8 August 2023. Regulations for 1st International Schools Chess Festival Official website: https://iscu.info/ Photo: cjph.ro/
FIDE World Senior Team Championships 2023: Registration is open
FIDE and the Chess Federation of North Macedonia are happy to invite all FIDE member federations and eligible teams to participate in the World Senior Team Chess Championships 2023. The championships will be held in Struga (Ohrid Lake) from September 18 (arrival) to September 29 (departure), 2023. The event will be played in two categories: age 50+ and age 65+ with separate events for women. Every player must reach the required age in the year of competition. There will be separate Women’s Championship(s) if at least ten teams from at least two continents take part. Otherwise, the women’s teams will play in Open competition. The Championships are open tournaments for teams registered by their federations. FIDE member federations have the right to send as many teams as they wish. The Championships are played on 4 boards (4 board players + 1 optional reserve player) The top 3 teams from the last-year championship have personal right to participate. The deadline for the registration is July 31, 2023. Regulations and invitation letter (pdf) FIDE Senior Teams Championship official website will be launched by May 30: seniorteam2023.fide.com E-mail: seniorteam2023@fide.com