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The second round of the European chess championship in Jerusalem already brought collisions between many of the 112 participating grandmasters and therefore no sensational upsets were witnessed, at least not of the kind we saw in round one. By the end of round two 25 GMs and a single IM were still clinging to a perfect 2.0/2 score. Russian GM Alexander Motylev, the current European champion, won both his games but six other former champions already dropped half a point each.
Reigning champion Alexander Motylev has had a good start
Among the top scoring players top-seed David Navara (2735) was playing uncharacteristically aggressive, no-holds-barred chess that seemed a lot more reminiscent of Tal. Consider the opening of his game in round one.
David Navara is black and this is what the position looked like after just
seven moves with 6...h5 (a novelty) and 7...h4. Hardly typical.
The opening was quite cutthroat as you can see, but it did not quite end in a bang (nor a whimper). Black emerged with a classic Fischer Ending and duly converted.
A special guest was GM Alik Gershon who replaced GM Ronen Har-Zvi at the live commentary studio. He plays very little these days though the local chess community still remembers his double world junior championship title (for under-14 in 1994 and under-16 in 1996) as well as his magnificent world record for simultaneous display in 2010 when he played in the centre of Tel-Aviv against 523 opponents at the very same time.
Though David Navara (2735) is listed as the top seed, it should be noted that it might be due
to alphabetical order since 'second' seed Nikita Vitiugov (left) shares the exact same rating.
Vitiugov was unable to keep a 100% score and was replaced by Pavel Eljanov (right) on board two
A great portrait of GM Semen Dvoirys
Round two showed an even wilder game by David Navara, this time against a far stronger opponent, Mircea-Emilian Parligras (2583), and if you thought the bullying the Czech showed in round one would be restrained, think again.
David Navara has been living up to his top-billing so far with steamroller chess
The guest of honour of the day was Israel’s No.1 Boris Gelfand who joined the team of commentators for a short session. He evaluated the top boards and answered a couple of questions by the interviewer GM Alon Greenfeld.
GM Alon Greenfeld interviews Boris Gelfand
Gelfand expressed his positive view about the spacious venue and the decent playing conditions and even referred to the question that many have raised: Why doesn’t he take part in the European championship? He said that he had indeed considered his participation, however the series of top tournaments he had played at the end of last year and the super tournaments he is invited to starting as of April demand a serious time out for recuperation and revision of his theoretical repertoire.
Emil Sutovsky
Veteran Alexander Beliavsky
In the third round a couple of sharp and fascinating battles were witnessed which left at the end of the day just five grandmasters with a perfect score: Navara (Czech Republic), Y. Vovk and Korobov (Ukraine), Najer (Russia) and Lupulescu (Romania). No fewer than 37 players had dropped just half a point each.
The plush playing hall
Rk
|
SNo
|
Ti.
|
Name
|
FED
|
Rtg
|
Pts
|
1 | 1 | GM | Navara David | CZE | 2735 | 3.0 |
11 | GM | Korobov Anton | UKR | 2687 | 3.0 | |
3 | 37 | GM | Najer Evgeniy | RUS | 2634 | 3.0 |
4 | 71 | GM | Vovk Yuri | UKR | 2588 | 3.0 |
5 | 44 | GM | Lupulescu Constantin | ROU | 2626 | 3.0 |
6 | 84 | GM | Stefansson Hannes | ISL | 2573 | 2.5 |
7 | 81 | GM | Vocaturo Daniele | ITA | 2579 | 2.5 |
8 | 109 | GM | Godena Michele | ITA | 2502 | 2.5 |
9 | 113 | GM | Rombaldoni Axel | ITA | 2488 | 2.5 |
10 | 67 | GM | Ipatov Alexander | TUR | 2592 | 2.5 |
11 | 125 | IM | Kanmazalp Ogulcan | TUR | 2457 | 2.5 |
12 | 2 | GM | Vitiugov Nikita | RUS | 2735 | 2.5 |
13 | 3 | GM | Eljanov Pavel | UKR | 2727 | 2.5 |
14 | 19 | GM | Laznicka Viktor | CZE | 2670 | 2.5 |
15 | 22 | GM | Motylev Alexander | RUS | 2665 | 2.5 |
16 | 8 | GM | Moiseenko Alexander | UKR | 2695 | 2.5 |
17 | 33 | GM | Volokitin Andrei | UKR | 2646 | 2.5 |
18 | 15 | GM | Inarkiev Ernesto | RUS | 2675 | 2.5 |
19 | 60 | GM | Goganov Aleksey | RUS | 2605 | 2.5 |
20 | 69 | GM | Duda Jan-Krzysztof | POL | 2591 | 2.5 |
Report by Yachanan Afek and Albert Silver
Photos by Yoav Nis
LinksThe 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |