The thirteenth Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament ran from April 15 to 24 and was held in two stages: the first five rounds were in Malmö, Sweden, the four final rounds in Copenhagen, Denmark.
A view of the tournament hall in Copenhagen
Dutch Veteran Jan Timman led the Danish-Swedish tournament alone almost the entire way, but was caught by India's Krishnan Sasikiran toward the end. A big finish was avoided when the two leaders drew their final round clash in 11 moves.
Timman vs Sasikiran in the final round
US champ Hikaru Nakamura took clear third. He played the most surprising move of the tournament when in a critical round seven game against Sasikiran he played 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5?!?. He went on to lose, but we must say it wasn't because of the opening.
Sasikiran confronted with 2.Qh5?!? against Nakamura
The winners: Krishnan Sasikiran of India and Jan Timman of Holland.
In the background are Johan Sigeman (sponsor) and Johan Berntsen (organizer).
This event is being held from April 18th-29th 2005 in Dagomys, Sochi. There are three tournaments which start at the same time: XII Russian men's team championship, the Premier League and 1st League; and VI Russian women team championship. The top 30 games of the championship are being broadcast live every day. Among the players are Svidler, Ivanchuk, Grischuk, Morozevich, Bareev, Dreev, Akopian, Bologan, Ponomariov, Motylev and Volokitin.
After nine of eleven rounds, the mighty Ladya-1000 team led by Peter Svidler and Sergei Rublevsky is leading this tough event with 10 points. TPS, with Ivanchuk and Sutovsky, is second with nine points. One of the most explosive games of the event so far was Landa-Shaposhnikov from the Unilain vs Economist-SGSEU match-up.
Landa,K (2571) - Shaposhnikov,E (2550) [B19]
TCh-RUS Sochi RUS (3), 21.04.2005
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 Nd7 8.h5
Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 e6 11.Bf4 Qa5+ 12.Bd2 Bb4 13.c3 Be7 14.c4 Qa6 15.0-0
Rd8 16.b4 Ngf6 17.a4 b6 18.Rfe1 0-0 19.Nf5 Rfe8.
Landa sacrificed three pieces in a row to force checkmate. Spectacular! 20.Nxg7! Kxg7 21.Rxe6!! fxe6? (21...c5 takes the fun out of it but White is still doing well after 22.Rae1 or even 22.Bxh6+!?) 22.Bxh6+! This third consecutive piece sac forces mate. 22...Kh8 23.Bg7+! Take it! 23...Kxg7 24.Qg6+ 1-0 (24...Kh8 25.Ng5)
Peter Svidler (Ladya-1000), Svetlana Matveeva (Ladya), Yury Yakovich (Unilain)
Anna Dushenok (Chigorin), Darmen Sadvakasov (Unilain), Antoaneta Stefanova
(ABC)
Alexander Morozevich (Tomsk-400), Irina Zakurdiatva (Transkonteiner), Anatoly
Karpov (Yuzhny Ural)
Irina Slavina (FINEK), Levon Aronian (Tomsk-400), Yana Melnikova(Transkonteiner)
Alisa Galliamova (Ladya), Pavel Smirnov (Tomsk-400), Natalia Zhukova (ABC)
The above pictures were taken from the special tournament event site (see link below)
