Cheparinov surprise winner in Gibraltar

The traditional Gibraltar Chess Congress has begun! The 12th edition of this event is under way, but the main attraction - the Masters Section, will begin tomorrow. The Masters section entries are closed and the pairings are ready for the tournament to begin.

Round Nine

Kamsky and Ivanchuk drew at the top allowing Rapport to potentially join the Ukrainian in the summit. However quite the contrary happened as Vachier-Lagrave took him down to take fate into his own hands and playing Ivanchuk on the last round. Vitiugov, Zhao Xue (!), Dreev and Cheparinov also joined Kamsky in the pack of players with 7.0/9

Kamsky getting ready for a decisive game

Tan Zhongyi had good chances for best women's prize,
but losing to Wei Yi diminished her chances greatly

Zhao Xue however entered round 10 half a point away from clinching best woman

Round Ten

With everything on the line - the prize difference between first and second and third being so big - players were eager to play fighting and exciting chess to risk it all. The first example of this could be seen on the first board:

With Ivanchuk's draw the door was open for players to try to catch him in the final round, but just because people are playing fighting chess doesn't meant they will best their opponent. The following results stood out:

Vitiugov's win over Zhao Xue was important not only because the Russian caught Ivanchuk and forced a playoff, but also because it left open the possibility for other ladies to catch Zhao Xue and potentially pass her on tiebreak (performance rating). This is indeed what happened as Mariya Muzychuk drew Agdestein and her massive TPR (tournament performance rating, which was at 2650+) allowed her to take best woman. Lenderman's loss to Zhukova guaranteed Zhukova's third place in the famel section as Li Chao beat Javakhishvili who had a monster tournament.

Back to the top boards Cheparinov bested Kamsky in a game which he was winning the entire time. Dreev and Al-Sayed shared the point and neither of them amde it to the final playoffs.

Vitiugov crushed Zhao Xue's dreams while advancing his own

Lawrence Trent made the fatal mistake of exchanging queens with Ulf Andersson. How can you expect to beat the endgame legend without your most powerful piece!? He was able to somehow draw the game regardless.

Dreev and Al-Sayed split the point and no one was benefited by this

Playoffs

The playoff system when there are three players in Gibraltar is hard to explain. One players gets to 'sit out' and wait for the winner of the other two players in the finals, but this isn't done by a tournament tiebreak or any other method, its just luck. This seems unfair to Ivancuhk especially as he had by far the most impressive performance solidly holding board one throughout the event.

As fate would have it he played Vitiugov. No stranger to playoffs in Gibraltar, Vitiugov vanquished Short last year to get the title. This year he beat Ivanchuk quite convincingly.

Ivanchuk and Vitiugov had almost no rest time before their rapid match

In the final he met with Cheparinov. The Bulgarian player had a long game against Kamsky in the tournament but had time to rest while the other players duked it out. The first game was interesting and the Bulgarian took advantage of Vitiugov's blunder in an endgame that should be drawn to win game one, and then held on on game two to take the first prize.

At 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move anything can happen, especially when the players are exhausted

We will bring you full analysis of these games and a report of the closing gala in a report later today, meanwhile here are the games of the playoff:

Playoff Games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

With this draw clinched Cheparinov won against Vitiugov 1.5-0.5 and claimed the tournament!

All Photos by John Saunders

Links Official tournament site The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.