Euro Club Cup: Deac wins with 1.a3, Offerspill and Superchess co-leaders

A first draw for Carlsen

The absolute star of the show in Durrës has been — not surprisingly — Magnus Carlsen. Representing Offerspill, the world number one scored four wins in as many games to help his team enter the final two rounds of the event sharing first place with the all-powerful Superchess. The two teams were paired up against each other on Friday, and drew their match to remain tied going into the final round.

In the marquee matchup of round 6, Richard Rapport held Carlsen to his first draw of the event. Three other games finished drawn, while wins for Bogdan-Daniel Deac (Superchess) and Pranav V (Offerspill) meant the two teams would enter Saturday’s round 7 still sharing the lead with 11/12 match points each.

At the very beginning of Friday’s round, all eyes turned to the board-3 confrontation between Deac and Aryan Tari, as the Romanian grandmaster played 1.a3 in a deciding encounter.

A manoeuvring battle ensued, with Tari agreeing to enter a position with an isolated pawn on the d-file. Deac gained the upper hand with proficient piece play, and reached the following advantageous position by move 26.

There is no saving the d5-pawn, which prompted Tari to start looking for tactical tricks on the kingside. Five moves later, he was already material down, but with a dangerous-looking (only at first sight) queen and knight duo.

Top Choice Repertoire: Play the French Defence Vol.1 & 2

In this two-volume video course former world-champion and startrainer Rustam Kasimdzhanov shows you the ins and outs of this hugely complex opening.

The white knight had just captured a rook on e8, so Tari went all-in with 31...Nf3+, using the fact that the light-squared long diagonal is weakened around White’s king. Engines show that simply 32.Kh1 is winning for White, but Deac found the stronger 32.Qxf3 Qxf3 33.Rxd7, and the well-coordinated white pieces are much stronger than the black queen.

Resignation came five moves later.

Aryan Tari | Photo: Niki Riga

The draw on the top board allowed six teams to close the gap with the co-leaders to a single match point. Heading the chasing pack are Asnieres and Novy Bor, who will get to face Offerspill and Superchess respectively on Saturday.

For Asnieres, the strongest performers so far have been Haik Martirosyan and Grigory Oparin, while Vincent Keymer and Thai Dai Van Nguyen have excelled for Novy Bor in the first six rounds of the week-long event.

Jules Moussard (Asnieres) has a 4/6 score playing on board 3 | Photo: Niki Riga

Standings - Round 6

Attack like a Super Grandmaster

In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM” with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.

...84 teams

All available games - Round 6

Replay all games at Live.ChessBase.com

Women’s: Superchess and Garuda Ajka score crucial wins

The women’s cup also has two teams tied for first going into the last round, except that, unlike in the open, the co-leaders come from climbing to the top of the standings by scoring victories on Friday. Superchess beat former leaders SP Gaz Ukraine, while Garuda Ajka defeated rating favourites Monte Carlo to reach their privileged spots atop the tournament table. The co-leaders will face each other in the final round.

Master Class Vol.16 - Judit Polgar

In this video course, experts (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) examine the games of Judit Polgar. Let them show you which openings Polgar chose to play, where her strength in middlegames were, or how she outplayed her opponents in the endgame.

Sharing third place one match point behind are SP Gaz Ukraine and TAJFUN SK Ljubljana, who will fight to reach the podium in what is likely to be an exciting seventh round.

Teodora Injac (Garuda Ajka) collected 3½ out of 5 points so far in Durrës | Photo: Niki Riga

The match between Garuda Ajka and Monte Carlo featured draws on boards 2-4, with Bella Khotenashvili grabbing the full point that gave the Hungarian team the all-important victory. Facing Mariya Muzychuk with black, Khotenashvili got a clear advantage but struggled to find the quickest path to victory more than once in the game — for example, on move 67:

With a bit less than 2 minutes on the clock, Khotenashvili here played 67...Qd5, and eventually managed to force her opponent’s resignation.

The Georgian grandmaster, however, missed 67...g6+ 68.fxg6 Qxg6#, a mate-in-two she would have surely found instantly in other circumstances.

Monte Carlo facing Garuda Ajka | Photo: Niki Riga

Standings - Round 6

Making the right decisions in chess - Fundamentals

In a total of 6 chapters, we look at the following aspects: the right decision based on tactical factors, decisions in exchanges and moves, complex and psychological decisions in longer games and in defence.

...26 teams

All available games - Round 6

Replay all games at Live.ChessBase.com

Links

• Official site
• Full technical information on Chess-Results
• Regulations