Mind Games Day 3: Gunina, Aronian lead blitz

by Alejandro Ramirez
12/14/2013 – Day one of the brutal blitz tournament has started. The event has a total of 30 rounds and today the first set of ten was played. In the Men's section Armenian Levon Aronian has destroyed the competition and emerged the strong leader with 8.5/10. In the Women's Gunina started with two losses, rebounded with an amazing eight wins and leads over Muzychuk and Yifan. Day 3 impressions.

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SportAccord Mind Games will be held in Beijing, China between the 12th of December and 20th December 2012. The World Mind Games was held for the first time in 2008 and consisted of 5 disciplines: chess, bridge, draughts (checkers), go, and xiangqi (Chinese chess). SportAccord, the organizer of the Mind Games, is the umbrella organization for both Olympic and non-Olympic sports as well as for major organizers of conferences and sporting events.

Day 3: Blitz - Men

Geoffrey Borg, FIDE CEO, and rapid winner Wang Yue

Le Quang Liem is the reigning World Blitz Champion. His showing so far has been solid as he is in 5th place

Aronian, who had a very weak showing in the rapids, came back and reminded the World of his strength in blitz chess. He started pretty well with a win against Ponomariov, a draw against Wang Yue and then three in a row victories against Wang Hao, Ivanchuk and Leko. He was stopped after Karjakin took advantage of a strange to win against Aronian with black. However the Armenian's day one finish was truly amazing with four triumphs in a row: Kamsky, Radjabov, Le Quang Liem and Dominguez all fell in a row to him.

Professional DGT boards come with two queens. Rumor has it that this is in case that a pawn is promoted before the queens are traded off. The truth is, as Giri here proves, that the spare queen is used to have a piece to fiddle with before anything comes off the board.

Nepomniachtchi, who is currently in second, started with a win against Ivanchuk, lost to Karjakin and Radjabov and then won an amazing six in a row. He finished the day with a draw against Kamsky which is good enough for 7.5/10

Blitz means time scrambles and extra pressure

Grischuk's +2 (6.0/10) is enough to put him in fourth thanks to tiebreaks

The field is just incredilby competitive. Prove of this is that Leko, the rapid winner, is currently tied for last with Dominguez who was World Blitz Champion only a few years ago.

Tomorrow there will be ten more rounds, and the blitz finishes on Monday with the last set of ten.

Ten more rounds means Dominguez has ten more chances to recover tomorrow

  Name Rtg FED 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Pts
1 Aronian Levon 2817 ARM * *       1   1 0 1 ½   1 1 1 1 1
2 Nepomniachtchi, I 2830 RUS   * *       1 0 0 ½   1 1 1 1 1 1
3 Mamedyarov, S 2721 AZE     * *     0 ½ 0   1 1 0 1 1 1 1
4 Grischuk Alexander 2798 RUS       * * 1 0 ½ 1 0   0   1 ½ 1 1 6
5 Le Quang Liem 2841 VIE 0     0 * * 1 ½   1   1   1 ½ ½ ½ 6
6 Vachier-Lagrave, M 2825 FRA   0 1 1 0 * *   0 1 1   1   ½   ½ 6
7 Radjabov Teimour 2755 AZE 0 1 ½ ½ ½   * * 1   ½ ½ 1     ½   6
8 Karjakin Sergey 2837 RUS 1 1 1 0   1 0 * *   0 1 0     ½  
9 Kamsky Gata 2671 USA 0 ½   1 0 0     * *   1   0 ½ 1 1 5
10 Wang Yue 2723 CHN ½   0     0 ½ 1   * * ½ 1 ½ ½ ½   5
11 Giri Anish 2747 NED   0 0 1 0   ½ 0 0 ½ * * 1       ½
12 Ivanchuk Vassily 2750 UKR 0 0 1     0 0 1   0 0 * * 1   ½  
13 Ponomariov Ruslan 2774 UKR 0 0 0 0 0       1 ½   0 * * 1   ½ 3
14 Wang Hao 2698 CHN 0 0 0 ½ ½ ½     ½ ½     0 * *   ½ 3
15 Dominguez Perez, L 2769 CUB 0 0 0 0 ½   ½ ½ 0 ½   ½     * *  
16 Leko Peter 2722 HUN 0 0 0 0 ½ ½     0   ½   ½ ½   * *

Note: Blitz ratings used

Men Blitz games 1-10

Day 3: Blitz - Women

Gunina is having a good time in China

Stefanova and Lagno kicked off the tournament with a draw against each other

Things in the Women's section looked very similar to the way the rapid progressed, with some big exceptions. First of all Gunina is leading the blitz after winning the rapid, but she is doing in a very unusual way. She started with losses against Cmilyte and Muzychuk and then proceeded to destroy the rest of her opponents with eight wins in a row! Speaking of Muzychuk she turned around her dissmal performance in the rapid and is now second in the blitz only half a point away from Gunina.

Muzychuk has rebounded nicely!

Hou Yifan will need to win more games to do better than bronze this time

In third is the World Champion Hou Yifan with 6.5/10, half a point ahead of another Chinese player, Zhao Xue, who is in fourth. Ju Wenjun, who got bronze in the rapids, finished the day with four losses in a row and only has 2.5/10.

Ju Wenjun only has 2.5/10 but she has two thirds of the tournament left

Ushenina is back in China after losing the World Championship to Hou Yifan earlier this year. In the blitz she has scored 50%

Rank Name Rtg FED 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Pts
1 Gunina Valentina 2527 RUS * * 0   1   1   1 1 1   1   1 0 1 8
2 Muzychuk Anna 2639 SLO 1 * * 1 1 1 ½ 0       1 1 0   1  
3 Hou Yifan 2559 CHN   0 * * ½ 0 1 0   1 1 1   1   1  
4 Zhao Xue 2471 CHN 0 0 ½ * *       ½ 0 1   1   1 1 1 6
5 Koneru Humpy 2558 IND   0 1   * * ½ 1 1 ½ 0 1   0   ½  
6 Lagno Kateryna 2532 UKR 0 ½ 0   ½ * *   ½     0 1   1 1 1
7 Sebag Marie 2501 FRA   1 1   0   * * 0 1 ½ 0     1 0 1
8 Stefanova Antoaneta 2508 BUL 0     ½ 0 ½ 1 * *     0 1 1 1   0 5
9 Ushenina Anna 2489 UKR 0   0 1 ½   0   * *   ½ 0 1 1   1 5
10 Kosteniuk Alexandra 2612 RUS 0   0 0 1   ½     * * 1 ½ 1   ½ 0
11 Dzagnidze Nana 2579 GEO   0 0   0 1 1 1 ½ 0 * *     0 1  
12 Paehtz Elisabeth 2574 GER 0 0   0   0   0 1 ½   * * 1 1   ½ 4
13 Kosintseva Tatiana 2480 RUS   1 0   1     0 0 0   0 * * 0 1 1 4
14 Cramling Pia 2430 SWE 0     0   0 0 0 0   1 0 1 * *   1 3
15 Cmilyte Viktorija 2532 LTU 1 0 0 0 ½ 0 1     ½ 0   0   * *   3
16 Ju Wenjun 2454 CHN 0     0   0 0 1 0 1   ½ 0 0   * *

Note: Blitz ratings used

Women Blitz games one to ten

Photos by WGM Gu Xiaobing taken from the official FIDE website

Schedule

Thursday, December 12th 14:00-19:00    Rapid Event: 1-4 rounds (men), 1-4 rounds (women)
Friday, December 13th 14:00-19:00    Rapid Event: 5-7 rounds (men), 5-7 rounds (women)
Saturday, December 14th 14:00-19:00    Blitz Event: 1-10 rounds (men), 1-10 rounds (women)
Sunday, December 15th 14:00-19:00    Blitz Event: 11-20 rounds (men), 11-20 rounds (women)
Monday, December 16th 14:00-19:00    Blitz Event: 21-30 rounds (men), 21-30 rounds (women)
Tuesday, December 17th 14:00-19:00    Basque System: 1-3 rounds (men), 1-3 rounds (women)
Wednesday, December 18th 11:00-16:00    Basque System: 4-5 rounds (men), 4-5 rounds (women) &
Closing Ceremony

Links

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.


Grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez has been playing tournament chess since 1998. His accomplishments include qualifying for the 2004 and 2013 World Cups as well as playing for Costa Rica in the 2002, 2004 and 2008 Olympiads. He currently has a rating of 2583 and is author of a number of popular and critically acclaimed ChessBase-DVDs.

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