9/4/2012 – This round was a showcase of classic monster matches, says the official bulletin. "When Godzilla and King Kong fight you don't get in the way. You step back and watch the destruction, hoping you don't become collateral damage." The match of the day was Russia vs Armenia, the game of the day Kramnik vs Aronian. In the women's section it was China vs Russia. Report and videos.
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The 40th Chess Olympiad is taking place in the Turkish metropole of Istanbul,
from August 27 to September 10th, 2012. A record of 158 national chess federations
have brought teams to Istanbul to participate in this prestigious event, which
is being staged in the WOW Hotel and Convention Center, just minutes away from
the airport.
Round six
In the Open section, top seeds Russia and Armenia met with monster mayhem on
boards 1 and 2.
Kramnik (above right), with the white pieces, searched for some small opportunity
to squeeze his Armenian opponent, and his opportunity came about...
...when Aronian pressed too hard, handing Kramnik the victory. On the board
next to them the classic Sasha Grischuk threw himself into an insanely complicated
position and lost. The bottom two boards drew their games and the match was
tied 2-2.
China delivered blow after massive blow, taking their opponents of Bosnia down
with a score of 3.5-0.5. Hungary and Azerbajian dispatched of their opponents,
Poland and Croatia, respectively, with score of 3-1. Finally, the USA and German
teams held each other to a draw with even scores on all boards. No boards seemed
to ever be in any danger of losing their games. The French team beat Finland
2.5-1.5 – Andrew Martin has annotated one of the games in his video report
below.
A three-way tie exists for first place with Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan
respectively. These results leaves the medal hunt still wide open, with five
rounds left to go.
In the Women's section, favorites Russia and China squared off. They exchanged
losses on boards 1 and 2 respectively and drew on boards 3 and 4 – a near
identical repeat of what happened in the Open section. Board 4 was first to
complete with a bloodless bishop of opposite color draw, but it soon was to
get bloody when WWCC Yifan Hou delivered the death blow to T. Kosintseva. The
elder Kosintseva avenged her younger sisters loss by dispatching of her opponent
to even up the match score. Board 3 soon drew afterward securing a drawn match.
Russia's lead is now gone, as the ladies of Poland caught up with a massive
win. Led by GM Socko, the Poles took out Serbia with a score of 3.5-0.5. Georgia,
Ukraine, France and Vietnam have all moved ahead with neat victories in the
6th round. Spain and Hungary exchanged a pair of wins and drew two games to
finish the match in a 2-2 tie.
Kramnik in the press conference with GM Robert Fontaine and WGM Anastasiya
Karlovich
My game against Levon Aronian was really surprising. It went for me quite smoothly.
Levon is absolutely a great player in fantastic shape. Of course playing white
my task was to try to press him and win. But somehow it went easier for me.
Levon had an uncomfortable position out of the opening. Then he missed tactics
with Nxb7 or maybe he missed Qb6. I don’t know exactly. But after that
it was over and I just had to calculate the variations accurately. To my surprise
I manage to do it. Not like in my last two games which were disappointing, especially
my game against Wang Hao, such a simple victory which I missed. This time at
least I managed to rehabilitate myself and win hopefully a very important game
of this match.
Fontaine: When you sacrificed a piece, did you already understand that
the position is winning?
Well I thought so, but from another point of view, when you play against such
a strong player, you always have doubts maybe he has some ace up his sleeve.
When I sacrificed I already saw the situation with Qb6, and all this line with
Rb7, Rc6, Rb8, Qb8. I did not really consider Qa8. I thought that after Qa8
I can even play only Kh1 and then B5. But then I calculated b5, the line that
I played in the game was not difficult, it was quite simple. I had a feeling
that after Ka5 Black’s position is already difficult. I think Rc7 is a
mistake. He should have done something else, but Black’s position is already
uncomfortable, especially with a pawn on f6. If a pawn would be on f7, something
could be done maybe. But f6 pawn is not a fun at all. Then everything worked
out tactically.
When you play on the first board, you have only strong opponents who normally
participate in the top tournaments. It is like you play in Tal Memorial. The
difference is that in Tal Memorial you know against who you are going to play.
Here you don’t know and the time control is a bit unusual for me as well.
The last time I played this time control was the Olympiad in Khanty Mansiysk.
And of course it is not a secret that our goal is to try to win the Olympiad.
You understand that it is a lot of pressure and responsibility.
Fontaine: You have now a new coach Yuri Dohoyan. How is it to work with
him and did anything change in the team with him?
Yuri is just the best coach, maybe the best coach in the world in my opinion.
No matter of which team, women’s or men’s. Yuri is really a great
coach. He also led Russian women’s team to a success. We are very happy
that we have him.
Look who's visiting the Olympiad! Garry Kasparov with his former second Yuri
Dohoyan.
Summaries from the official web site,
photos by David Llada, Arman Karakhanyan, Anastasiya Karlovich
Daniel King: Round 5 Play of the Day: Vladimir Kramnik vs Levon Aronian
Andrew Martin: Game of the Day Rd 6: IM Mikael Agopov vs GM Romain Edouard
Full video report of round six
Live video coverage of the Olympiad
Remaining schedule of the Olympiad
There is live commentary of the most interesting games on Playchess.com,
beginning around half an hour after the games have started.
2 September 2012
Free Day
3 September 2012
15.00
6th Round
Daniel King
4 September 2012
15.00
7th Round
Reeh/Müller
5 September 2012
15.00
8th Round
Daniel King
6 September 2012
15.00
9th Round
Valery Lilov
7 September 2012
15.00
10th Round
Daniel King
8 September 2012
Free Day
9 September 2011
11.00
11th Round, Closing
Daniel King
10 September 2011
Departure
Some hours after the end of each round we will be posting video summaries by
Daniel King on our news page. If possible they will appear on the same night,
otherwise early the next morning. We also expect best-game video commentary
from Andrew Martin.
The top 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
11 or any of our Fritz
compatible chess programs.
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The greater part of the material on which the Rossolimo/Moscow Powerbook 2025 is based comes from the engine room of playchess.com: 263.000 games. This imposing amount is supplemented by some 50 000 games from Mega and from Correspondence Chess.
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