Naiditsch wins second Swiss at Basel

by Priyadarshan Banjan
1/5/2015 – The fifth edition of the Basel Chess Festival took place from January 1st to 5th with top seeds Arkadij Naiditsch and Richard Rapport forming the cream of strong GMs and IMs in a field of 80 players in the Masters section. The traditional year opening Swiss tournament was held in the Hilton Hotel at Basel. The German grandmaster won his second back-to-back Swiss. An illustrated report.

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The king calleth the pawn black

The Masters section as the players wait for the round to start

In this seven round swiss, the tournament saw a five-way tie at the top with 5.5/7 points
where top seed German GM Arkadij Naiditsch took first place on tiebreak.

This was the second straight victory in Switzerland for the German as
he had won the Zurich Christmas Open just a week before

Dourerrassou - Naiditsch

Naiditsch caught his opponent napping and won a pawn here.
Black to play and win. (Solution at end)

16-year-old German-born IM Alexander Donchenko (2523 FIDE) was second on tiebreak

Third place was taken by GM Eduardo Iturrizaga (2654 FIDE) of Venezuela

Iturrizaga - Van Foreest

In the position above, Iturrizaga played out an elegant finish. His
opponent Van Foreest just played 1...Ra8 attacking the queen.
White to play and win.

Hungarian GM Richard Rapport (2716), the World no.1 Junior, had a forgettable tournament
scoring 4.5/7 to finish twelfth

Fourteen-year-old Dutch talent IM Jorden Van Foreest (2467) also scored 4.5/7

Swiss GM Yannick Pelletier (2588) scored 5.0/7 to finish eighth

German IM Felix Graf (2472) had a good tournament, finishing ninth with 5.0/7

Serbian GM Milos Pavlovic (2472) bounced back from a shaky start to finish fifth

Legendary GM Vlastimil Hort showed that age is not a factor and scored
a commendable 5.0/7 to finish tenth

The top three prizewinners of the Masters section

In the amateurs section held alongside the Masters’ main event, the winner was Natal Vorotnikova
of Russia, beating out all other challengers

Solutions:

Dourerrassou - Naiditsch: 1...Qc8! attacking the pawn on h3 so 2.Kh2 Bf5! and after the queen moves 3.Qxc2 picks up the pawn.
Iturrizaga - Van Foreest: 1.Rb3+! Kxb3 2.Qb6+ Ka3 3.Rb7! and mate is inevitable.

Photos by Uwe Zinke

Final standings

Rk
Name
Ti.
Rtg
Fed
Pts
TB
1.
Naiditsch, Arkadij
GM
2731
GER
5.5
25.0
2.
Donchenko, Alexander
IM
2523
GER
5.5
23.5
3.
Iturrizaga Bonell
GM
2654
VEN
5.5
22.5
4.
Dann, Matthias
IM
2457
GER
5.5
21.5
5.
Pavlovic, Milos
GM
2472
SRB
5.5
18.0
6.
Svane, Rasmus
IM
2507
GER
5.0
22.0
7.
Bok, Benjamin
GM
2572
NED
5.0
21.5
8.
Pelletier, Yannick
GM
2588
SUI
5.0
20.5
9.
Graf, Felix
IM
2472
GER
5.0
20.0
10.
Hort, Vlastimil
GM
2432
GER
5.0
19.5
11.
Van Foreest, Jorden
IM
2467
NED
4.5
23.5
12.
Rapport, Richard
GM
2716
HUN
4.5
22.5
13.
Toth, Bela
IM
2346
ITA
4.5
20.0
14.
Dourerassou, Jonat
IM
2469
FRA
4.5
19.0
15.
Fedorovsky, Michael
IM
2443
GER
4.5
19.0
16.
Loetscher, Roland
IM
2447
SUI
4.5
19.0
17.
Delchev, Aleksander
GM
2627
BUL
4.5
19.0
18.
Guttulsrud, Odd Ma
CM
2180
NOR
4.5
17.0
19.
Djingarova, Emilia
WGM
2235
BUL
4.0
19.5
20.
Lerch, Patrice
IM
2383
FRA
4.0
19.0

Click for complete standings


Links

The games are being 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.


Priyadarshan Banjan is a 23-year-old club player from India. He works as an editor for ChessBase News and ChessBase India. He is a chess fanatic and an avid fan of Vishy Anand. He also maintains a blog on a variety of topics.

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