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The 2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is taking place from Monday, 24 January to Thursday, 3 February 2011 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The event, which is open to all, is the ninth in the series held on the Rock, but the first one to be sponsored by Tradewise Insurance. The rate of play: 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start. There is a special women's award for the hightest performance by a female player, with a prize of £10,000. In addition there are a number of subsiduary tournaments.
Everything went black on the Rock on Monday evening. Play was interrupted for just over an hour in the Gibraltar Masters as there was an electricity outage over a large area of Gibraltar. At 7.45 p.m. clocks were stopped as players (still playing nearly five hours into their game) remained seated at their boards in near blackness as the emergency lights in the hotel came into operation.
Chess by candlelight: it was actually rather darker than the photo shows,
and the
players were waiting patiently for the lights to come back on
Arbiters and hotel staff took control of the situation and within minutes torches were flashing and candles found. This at least allowed players some movement around the hotel. Play resumed shortly after 9 p.m. when the electricity was restored.
Organiser Stuart Conquest quickly makes sure the girls (Nadezhda and Tatiana
Kosintseva, Natalija Pogonina) are safe and not frightened by the dark
Of course, it was all Stewart Reuben’s fault. After all, on Sunday tempted fate by making a joke about “rainbow stopped play”, didn’t he? It was the curse of the chess commentator, whereby all predictions and whimsical observations inevitably come back and kick you in the teeth. Stewart, who is the UK’s most experienced tournament director, tried to deflect criticism but he was impaled on the iron logic of IM Jack Rudd who told him: “[the electricity outage] could be deemed an act of God – so you were responsible.”
The black-out did influence a couple of peace treaties amongst the top boards but as far as can be ascertained there were no obvious injustices done by one player having an extra hour’s thinking time. On the top boards the decisive results were all battles of the sexes. The men beat the women 2-1 in this unofficial match. Israeli GM Michael Roiz gradually harried Nadezhda Kosintseva into an untenable position with his advantage of the two bishops.
GM Gopal Geetha Narayanan of India, rated 2597
GN Gopal’s win against Nana Dzagnidze was more tactical but achieved much the same objective. Salome Melia struck back with a win against her fellow countryman Giorgi Kachesihvili. As with Vallejo Pons’ game the previous day, this looked to be a case of a bad choice of opening by the stronger player and demonstrated how quickly even a strong grandmaster can find himself in a desperate straits.
IM Salome Melia of Georgia, rated 2449
Melia,S (2449) - Kacheishvili,G (2585) [B14]
Gibraltar Masters Caleta ENG (7), 31.01.2011
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nf3 Bb4 7.cxd5 Nxd5
8.Bd2 Nc6 9.Bd3 0-0 10.0-0 Be7 11.Re1 Bf6 12.Nxd5 exd5 13.Ne5 Qb6.
13...Nxd4 is not completely out of the question, but after 14.Bb4 Bxe5 15.Rxe5
Re8 16.Qh5 g6 17.Rxe8+ Qxe8 18.Qxd5 White has a substantial positional edge.
14.Bc3 g6 15.a4 a5. Silicon suggests lines like 15...Bxe5 16.dxe5
d4 17.Bd2 Re8 which may win a pawn but the human player would worry about the
exposed dark squares on the kingside. Still, it might have been better than
the text. 16.Qf3 Ne7 17.Bb5 Kg7
18.b4! This bold move establishes the two white bishops on the two diagonals a4-e8 and a3-f8 and sets up strong threats. 18...axb4 19.Bxb4 Qxd4. Black is damned if he does capture, and damned if he doesn't. 19...Be6 20.Qa3 Qd8 21.Re2 Rc8 22.Rae1 and White is contemplating a knight sacrifice on f7. 20.Qa3! Bxe5 21.Rad1 Qb2 22.Rxe5 Qxe5 23.Bc3 d4 24.Bxd4 Qxd4 25.Rxd4 Nf5 26.Rd1 Kg8 27.Qf3 h5 28.h3 Rb8 29.Bc4 Ng7. A blunder in what is a lost position anyway. 30.Bxf7+ 1-0.
The Gibraltar Masters is not all about super-GMs and top ten women stars. It provides the opportunity for sub-2200 rated players to show that they can score points against more exalted opposition. Several players in this category have good scores but we’ll single out just two. Philip Wheldon, 2106, of England is on 4½/7, having drawn with IM Eesha Karavade and defeated GM Juan Manuel Bellon.
Untitled Paul Szuper of USA, rated 2174
More impressive still has been Paul Szuper, 2174, of the USA, who in his last four games has drawn with IM Gaponenko and GM Ikonnikov, and beaten WGM Pogonina and GM Lemos for a score of 5/7. You might say that Wheldon has done well but the American has been szuper-duper.
GM Pia Cramling with her 8-year-old daughter Ana
Ana and the Rock, a monolithic limestone promontory that is the trademark of
Gibraltar
Not doing too well in Gibraltar, but still cheerful: GM Tatiana Kosintseva
of Russia
Photos by Zeljka Malobabic and John Saunders
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