European Championship Rd8: And then there was one

The eighth round of the European Individual Championship saw a drastic development which may become crucial in the final standing of this event. The clash between co-leaders, Spaniard David Anton Guijarro and David Howell was anything but an uneventful draw. After a not so great opening, Anton Guijarro found himself in an unpleasant middlegame with white where his bishop was worse than Howell’s knight.

Instead of trying to accept matters and plan for a long defense, the Spanish GM tried a tactical adventure with his queen which did not end well. The young Spaniard ended up with an awkwardly placed queen on a7, his reward for chasing a pawn, and his king remained exposed to a series of threats orchestrated with a combination of knight, rook and queen maneuvers. Howell’s 20…Ng4! In particular was a key factor that uncorked an attack on white’s king. Overwhelmed by Black’s threats, Anton Guijarro gave up an exchange to build a fortress with his queen and bishop, however, Howell’s accuracy was impeccable and he played nearly perfect to earn a crucial win with black. This victory has put the Englishman on a stellar 7.0/8 (with 6 consecutive wins) and excellent chances to win the European championship. Were he to do so, it would be the first European title by any British since the event was created in 2000.

Anton Guijaro vs Howell

All was not that bad for yesterday’s heroes as IM Arman Mikaelyan showed how ‘easy’ it is to play the King’s Indian defense and had young Russian GM Danill Dubov on the brink of losing with white. The game ended up being drawn, which secured the GM norm for the Armenian. The funny thing is how Caissa brought two people together, since round nine sees Mikaelyan has white against Guijarro!

The third board was also dominated by the black pieces. European chess federation representative (!), Bulgarian GM Ivan Cheparinov got the better of his strong opponent GM Ivan Ivanisevic from Serbia. Known for his aggressive style, Ivanisevic essayed a short castle form of Velimirovic-Sozin style attack, one of Fischer’s weapons against the Sicilian, but his early pawn push and central pieces placement did not seem to pose any danger to black. Gradually losing ground, Ivanisevic was forced to give up a pawn due to tactical trouble along the h2-b8 diagonal and eventually lost the endgame to Cheparinov’s accurate play.

It was not all about black pieces though. Russian Anton Demchenko played very enterprising chess against Latvian Igor Kovalenko on the white side of Sicillian. The Russian essayed 6.a3 to prevent Bb4 threats, a move that is gaining popularity these days, and went on to castle early on the queenside. White then essayed an immediate attack with g4, against which, Kovalenko decided to react immediately in the center with d5. Things never seemed pleasant for Black, and White’s pieces were faster in occupying crucial squares in the center. Kovalenko tried his best to complicate matters but Demchenko kept his cool and ensured a match on board one against the current leader David Howell.

Demchenko vs Kovalenko

Speaking of Swiss gambits, most of the top-rated players are not even among the leaders. While Navara and Andreikin are sitting on a ‘respectable’ but rather modest +3 with almost no chance of winning the tournament, some legendary figures, like ex-world championship finalist, Peter Leko is only on +1 after the latter lost a much better position to Russian Dmitry Bocharov.

Bocharov vs Leko

However, the Gambit does not seem to have flamboyant Baadur Jobava from Georgia out of contention. Baadur, whose entertaining style and colorful personality have earned him a lot of fans and friends in the chess community, scored his fifth consecutive win against ‘in shape’ Greek Dmitrios Moastrovasilis to reach +4 in spite of a disastrous start with only 1.0/3! This was not one of those crazy positions we are used to seeing in Jobava’s games. The game started slow and the Georgian got nothing out of the opening. In fact, Mastrovasilis was so confident, he began probing ways to seize the initiative. In a safe but slightly complicated queen endgame, the Greek fell  prey to the drama of  ‘any check is a good check’ and ended up losing as White’s passed pawn turned uncontrollable!

Jobava vs Mastrovasilis

Round 9 will bring us a lot of action as players put together their utmost effort and energy to squeeze the most out of their chances!

Standings after eight rounds

Click for complete standings

Links

• Official tournament site
• All games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)

You can use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.