Keres Memorial - ACP Open: David Howell leads

1/9/2016 – Chess legend Paul Keres was born on 7th January 1916. To celebrate his 100-year jubilee a strong rapid tournament is played in Tallinn, in which world class players such as P. Svidler, Boris G. or P. Eljanov take part. But after eight rounds the English GM David Howell leads the field with 7.0/8. Half a point behind follow Duda, Svidler, Kovalenko and Gelfand.

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The Keres Memorial - ACP Open is organised by the Association of Chess Professionals, the Estonian Chess Federation and the Kalev Sports Association.

Eleven rounds will be played in Tallinn, four on Friday, four on Saturday and the final three on Sunday. Each player has 15 minutes for the whole game and gets an additional 10 seconds per move. With a current rating of 2685 three times British Champion David Howell is currently England's number two (narrowly ahead of Nigel Short with 2684 and behind Michael Adams with 2744) and started the Keres Memorial as number ten on the ranking list. But he showed good form and with six wins and two draws he finishes day two as the sole leader of the tournament.

Howell finished day two in style and won with a fine attack:

Standings after 8 rounds

Rg.	Snr		Name	Land	Elo	Pkt.	Wtg1
1	10	GM	Howell David W L	ENG	2646	7,0	38,0
2	14	GM	Duda Jan-Krzysztof	POL	2603	6,5	39,5
3	2	GM	Kovalenko Igor	LAT	2734	6,5	37,5
4	1	GM	Svidler Peter	RUS	2736	6,5	36,0
5	3	GM	Gelfand Boris	ISR	2733	6,5	34,5
6	16	GM	Miton Kamil	POL	2597	6,5	34,0
7	12	GM	Georgiev Kiril	BUL	2612	6,0	39,5
8	6	GM	Berkes Ferenc	HUN	2685	6,0	38,0
9	27	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	RUS	2514	6,0	37,5
10	29	IM	Sveshnikov Vladimir	LAT	2467	6,0	37,0
11	17	GM	Jumabayev Rinat	KAZ	2590	6,0	36,0
12	20	GM	Tregubov Pavel V.	RUS	2566	6,0	35,5
13	11	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	IND	2615	6,0	35,5
14	26	GM	Romanov Evgeny	RUS	2529	6,0	34,0
15	19	GM	Neiksans Arturs	LAT	2579	6,0	33,5
16	9	GM	Motylev Alexander	RUS	2651	5,5	40,0
17	8	GM	Vitiugov Nikita	RUS	2665	5,5	39,5
18	18	GM	Mikhalevski Victor	ISR	2590	5,5	39,0
19	22	GM	Lintchevski Daniil	RUS	2549	5,5	38,0
20	4	GM	Fridman Daniel	GER	2688	5,5	37,5
	31	GM	Volodin Aleksandr	EST	2457	5,5	37,5
22	23	IM	Kantans Toms	LAT	2547	5,5	37,5
23	5	GM	Matlakov Maxim	RUS	2686	5,5	37,0
	54	IM	Seeman Tarvo	EST	2303	5,5	37,0
25	38	GM	Balashov Yuri S	RUS	2423	5,5	37,0
26	24	GM	Goganov Aleksey	RUS	2545	5,5	36,5
27	13	GM	Sutovsky Emil	ISR	2604	5,5	36,0
28	33	GM	Sveshnikov Evgeny	RUS	2455	5,5	35,0
29	37	FM	Mustaps Matiss	LAT	2429	5,5	34,5
30	21	GM	Rakhmanov Aleksandr	RUS	2564	5,5	34,0
31	56	IM	Nyysti Sampsa	FIN	2287	5,5	31,0
32	42	IM	Padmini Rout	IND	2392	5,5	29,5
33	35	GM	Yevseev Denis	RUS	2442	5,0	38,0

...177 players

Some of the participants: E. Sveshnikov, I. Kovalenko, D. Fridman,
E. Sutovsky, B. Gelfand, P. Svidler, P. Eljanov (Photo: Russian Chess Federation)

Games

Paul Keres - always ready for a game.

Okay, let's go!

Addendum: Some readers wondered whether the position on the board was taken from a game Keres played or whether it is one of the studies he composed. The position on the board of the statue is almost identical to the final position of the game Walter Browne - Paul Keres, Vancouver 1975, the last tournament game Keres ever played. However, in the real Browne - Keres game the white rook was on g4, not on h3.

It is also slightly confusing that the statue of Keres plays with White whereas Keres had Black in the actual game.