Four players lead before the final round in Poikovsky

Eleventh Poikovsky Tournament

The 11th Poikovsky Karpov tournament is taking place from 2 to 14 June 2010 – in Poikovsky, which is in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Russia.

Activities on the free day

On the free day there was an outing for the players to the recreational park at Nefteyugansk

A lion in a cage like the kind you used to see in Europe a few decades ago

Not exactly duplicating the natural habitat of these animals

A bear roving – well, the cage

A majestic eagle...

... and a few less majestic barnyard animals

You should see this fellow from the other side

Chess players in the park: Emil Sutovsky, Dmitry Jakovenko and Nakita Vitiugov

Baadur Jobava takes a riding lesson

A 12-year-old local girl shows him how it is done

Alexander Riazantsev tries his hand at shooting ducks over the lake...

...as does Alexander Motylev, apparently both with little success

Finally a festive meal, with suckling pigs

The animals are cut into palatable pieces before the players are allowed to tuck in

The festive buffet for the players – you are going to have to google yourself to find
out how Faina Ranevskaya described a meal of suckling pig

The pictures and information in this article originated at the Russian chess newspage ChessPro. Our colleagues there are doing full pictorial reports with annotated games. Definitely worth a visit, even if it is in Russian. You can use Google Translate to catch the gist.

Standings after ten rounds

Statistics Of the 60 games played so far in this event: 63% (38 games) ended in draws White won 15 games = 25% Black won 7 games = 12%

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The 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 the free PGN reader ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program to read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!