4/3/2021 – A 9-round over-the-board tournament is taking place in La Nucía, a municipality in the comarca of Marina Baixa, Alicante in Spain. No fewer than 180 players registered to participate, 11 of which have a 2400+ Elo rating. After 5 rounds, 58-year-old Armenian grandmaster Karen Movsziszian is the sole leader. | All photos: Patricia Claros Aguilar
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A 5-day Easter tournament
The “Semana Santa” over-the-board tournament is taking place in La Nucía, Alicante. Organized by Patricia Claros Aguilar with the support of the Valencian Chess Federation, the event is a 9-round Swiss open with a time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game plus 30-second increments from move 1.
Miguel Santos is the top seed, followed by Russian GM Daniil Yuffa and a trio of experienced Spanish grandmasters — Marc Narciso, Salvador del Río and José Cuenca. Former world senior chess champion Karen Movsziszian arrived in La Nucía as the sixth seed and is currently the only player to have won all five of his games.
With four rounds to go (two will be played each day over the weekend), six players are chasing the leader on 4½/5 points. Movsziszian will face his highest challenge so far in round 6, when he will have the black pieces against Narciso. Cuenca v Del Río and Santos v Yuffa are key encounters that will also take place on Saturday morning.
In the following video report, Movsziszian says: “It’s been a year since I last played a tournament, it’s the first game I’ve played in a year. I’m very happy”.
Movsizian, who won the Armenian Championship 30 years ago (in 1981), defeated Cristian Aranda in round 5. The experienced grandmaster played an Anti-Sicilian with g3, and the following position was reached after 14 moves:
Play like Carlsen, avoid theory but without being passive or losing the initiative.
Aranda did not sense the danger and played the developing move 14...Rac8. In hindsight, it’s clear that Black should go for either 14...h6 or 14...Qc7/14...Qe8, removing the queen from the d-file. The point is that White now has 15.c4
At this point, Black should cut his losses and give up a pawn with 15...Nf6 16.Bxf6 Bxf6 17.Nxc5. Instead, going for 15...Nb6 allows 16.cxb5 axb5 and yet another strong central pawn break — 17.d4
Again, the best alternative was to give up material with 17...cxd4 18.Qxb5 and the d-pawn will fall soon — of course, a sad continuation as White gets two connected passers on the queenside. Aranda instead opted for 17...c4, to which White responded with the forceful 18.Nc5
In this video series Pert gives a strong and practical Black repertoire against the Anti-Sicilians such as the Bb5 Sicilian, the Grand Prix Attack, the Alapin and many more, from my years of experience playing the Sicilian.
Now we see why removing the queen from the d-file was necessary a few moves ago. The game continued 18...Qc7 19.Bf4 Bd6
Black has kept the material balance, but his pieces are cramped and unable to deal with White’s attack after 20.Nxe6 fxe6 21.Qxe6 Kf8 22.Ng5
White threatens mate with Nxh7, while after 22...g6 he has 23.Qf6+ Kg8 24.Bh3, and the light-squared bishop is set to join the attack. Black resigned.
There are few names which, like that of Alexei Shirov, can be associated with fantastically imaginative and tactically influenced play. Now the Latvian grandmaster is presenting a DVD on precisely that element of the game of chess. And one that is completely based on his own games.
Carlos Alberto ColodroCarlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
The Nimzo-Indian has stood the test of time for over a century: Still a top choice for elite players today, from Magnus Carlsen to Praggnanandhaa, it remains one of Black's most reliable ways to fight for real chances against 1.d4 2.c4 3.Nc3.
1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Bb4!? is an opening idea well worth considering. Black immediately threatens to double the pawns on c3 in the style of the Trompowski or Sicilian Grand Prix attack.
Italian Game Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains 8571 top class games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 479 are annotated.
Videos: Nico Zwirs discusses the Sicilian with 2…e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qe3 Nf6 6.Nc3. Mihail Marin examines Sindarov’s 6.Ne5 in the Queen’s Pawn Defence. Plus the ‘Lucky bag’ featuring 41 analyses by Berg, Ftacnik, Gupta and many others.
If you're looking for a dynamic alternative to the Slav, Queen's Gambit Declined, or other mainstream systems, the Chigorin Defence offers exactly what modern tournament players need.
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