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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.
Saturday night will undoubtedly become one of the most memorable social events of the 10 day Tradewise International Chess Festival when the men and the women of this tournament played a friendly, yet fearsome Battle of the Sexes – a rapid match with a time limit of 10 minutes for all the moves plus an increment of 5 seconds a move.
The women's team: Left to Right: Cmilyte, Krush, Tranh Trang Hoang, Sachdev, organiser Brian Callaghan, Vojinovic, Paehtz, Guo Qi and Zhukova
The Women ruled the night and won by 2-0, with a third game (played at 10+0) played and won by the Men. Ring master, and director of this tournament Stuart Conquest, held the night together in a casual and relaxed manner which has become synonymous with this tournament – in its own unique style which is so much appreciated by those participating. Helping out on the night was Miss Glamour 2013, Tessa Britto, from Gibraltar.
An elated women's team achieving victory
The event was attended by organiser Brian Callaghan who was joined his wife and family as well as many of the sponsors who make the festival possible every year including: James Humphreys from Tradewise, Pepe Canilla from Canillas, Tim Bristow from Gibtelecom, Joe Hernandez from the GSLA and Jorge Leiria from Casais. Saturday night saw the women outwit the men in the second Battle of the Sexes which has grown substantially from last year. Everyone wanted to play.
The men's team was composed of: Captain Nigel Short, Simen Agdestein, Richard Rapport, Robin Van Kampen, Daniil Dubov, Wei Yi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Surya Ganguly and Odin Blik Vea.
Men's captain Nigel Short was the first to congratulate the women
Stuart Conquest said: "It is just fantastic, the way in which everyone participates in these events. This is the kind of thing that makes this tournament so special. I had a great time myself and it was great to see everyone joining in. Next year the event will again be bigger and better. We want to make the battle of the sexes one of the highlights of this tournament." At the end of the night the women’s team Captain Victorija Cmilyte, presented a cheque for £1,000 to Tamara Stewart-Wilson, for the Neuroblastoma Society. We look forward to the third Battle of the Sexes next year!
Captain of the Women's team Viktoria Cmilyte receiving the prize
China Dragon, made up of a mixed team of Chinese players, tied with 50-50, a team of East European players, to jointly win the Blitz team event of the 2014 Tradewise Chess Festival played in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere on Thursday night.
Blitz winning team members Xu Jun (coach) and Natalia Zhukova collect the prizes from Laurent Freyd and Stuart Conquest
Tan Zhongyi and Guo Qi were part of the strong China Dragon team
The Chinese Dragon team was composed of Tan Zhongyi, Guo Qi, Wei Yi and Li Chao.
The 50-50 team included: Danil Dobov (Russia), Richard Rapport (Hungary), Natalia Zhukova (Ukraine) and Jovana Vojinovic (Serbia).
The tournament is always held in a very friendly atmosphere
This year’s team Blitz event saw a record number of entries with 108 players making up 27 teams. They each competed with four players over six rounds. Both winning teams won four matches and drew two. The next Blitz event with two players in each team will be held on Sunday evening.
Team 50-50 in training!
Reports byJohn Saunders, photos by Sophie Triay
None of the players with 4.0/4 were able to win their games and the leadergroup is now a big tie at 4.5/5. Included in this melee are tournament favorites MVL (Maxime Vachier-Lagrave) who trounced Argentinean grandmaster Sandro Mareco in a beautiful romantic game and Vassily Ivanchuk who had a very complex game with Sergei Movsesian.
The first board was an exchange Slav in which Rodshtein didn't have that many problems holding.
| Bo. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | Result | Pts. | Name | Rtg | ||
| 1 | GM | Li Chao B | 2680 | 4 | ½ - ½ | 4 | GM | Rodshtein Maxim | 2682 |
| 2 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | 2745 | 3½ | 1 - 0 | 4 | GM | Mareco Sandro | 2582 |
| 3 | GM | Movsesian Sergei | 2677 | 3½ | 0 - 1 | 3½ | GM | Ivanchuk Vassily | 2739 |
| 4 | GM | Vitiugov Nikita | 2737 | 3½ | 1 - 0 | 3½ | GM | Spraggett Kevin | 2544 |
| 5 | GM | Vallejo Pons Francisco | 2707 | 3½ | 1 - 0 | 3½ | GM | Adhiban B. | 2590 |
| 6 | GM | Salgado Lopez Ivan | 2597 | 3½ | 0 - 1 | 3½ | GM | Harikrishna P. | 2706 |
| 7 | GM | Edouard Romain | 2658 | 3½ | 0 - 1 | 3½ | GM | Rapport Richard | 2691 |
| 8 | GM | Antipov Mikhail Al. | 2511 | 3 | 0 - 1 | 3 | GM | Adams Michael | 2754 |
| 9 | GM | Xu Jun | 2510 | 3 | ½ - ½ | 3 | GM | Eljanov Pavel | 2733 |
| 10 | GM | Tomashevsky Evgeny | 2715 | 3 | ½ - ½ | 3 | IM | Muzychuk Mariya | 2503 |
| 11 | GM | Sebag Marie | 2501 | 3 | 0 - 1 | 3 | GM | Kamsky Gata | 2709 |
| 12 | GM | Navara David | 2702 | 3 | 1 - 0 | 3 | GM | Rahman Ziaur | 2499 |
| 13 | GM | Dreev Aleksey | 2673 | 3 | 1 - 0 | 3 | GM | Popilski Gil | 2492 |
| 14 | GM | Zhu Chen | 2481 | 3 | 0 - 1 | 3 | GM | Cheparinov Ivan | 2672 |
| 15 | GM | Sutovsky Emil | 2663 | 3 | 0 - 1 | 3 | WGM | Tan Zhongyi | 2483 |
Mareco was on the wrong side of a brilliancy
Li Chao-Rodshtein was a solid draw on board one
Tomashevsky was unable to best Muzychuk (Mariya, not Anna)
Movsesian-Ivanchuk was about as complex as chess gets, but the Ukrainian played better at the end
Tan Zhongyi had a great result by beating Sutovsky with Black and has a tactical bye in
round six to recover from the side events
All Photos by John Saunders
LinksThe 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. |
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