Gawain Jones leads with 4.0/4 in Plovdiv
3/24/2012 – On the top twelve boards there were eleven draws in round four of the European Championship in Bulgaria. The one decisive game was the black piece win by Gawain Jones against Russian GM Boris Savchenko,. The English GM is now the only player left with a perfect score. GM Alejandro Ramirez has selected a game that wasn't one of the top top boards, but which he found to be highly entertaining.
The 13th European Individual Championship is taking place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, from March 20th to 31st, 2012. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves, plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. The total prize fund is 100,000 Euros, with the top three taking 14,000, 11,000 and 9,000 Euros respectively.
Round four – Gawain Jones in the sole lead
The start of round four in Plovdiv
English GM Gawain Jones, 2635, beat Russian GM Boris Savchenko, 2580 with the black pieces to emerge alone at the top of the scoreboard, with 4.0/4 points and a fantastic rating performans of 3317. All other games on the first twelve boards were drawn, with most of them lasting around five hours. The first decisive games finished on board 117, where French GM Roman Edouard, 2607, defeated Swedish GM Nicolas Grandadam, 2361, in ninety minutes.
Top seed Fabiano Caruana of Italy (above left), playing white, had a clear advantage throughout his game against Bulgarian GM Julian Radulski, over 200 points below him on the Elo scale, but did not manage to convert it into a full point in spite of 72 moves of trying. Remarkably Ukrainian GM Vladimir Onischuk, 2516, lost his game to 14-year-old German FM Alexander Donchenko, rated 2309. Unfortunately this game is not yet available. Turkish GM Dragan Solak, 2602, lost ot lost to FM Kirill Alekseenko, 2367, from Russia.
Here's an interesting game from round four, annotated by GM Alejandro Ramirez.
Top rankings after round five
Behind the leader Gawain Jones we have 20 players with 3.5/4 points, and then 43 players sharing 3.0/4 points. We are especially impressed with Romanian WIM Irina Bulmaga, rated 2307, who is currently playing at a 2765 performance level.
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In the fifth round Gawain Jones has white against Russian Nikita Vityugov, who is 74 points ahead of him on the rating scale. The experienced Bulgarian GM Kiril Georgiev, 2671, takes on 15-year-old Ukrainian star Illya Nyzhnyk, 2585. Top seed Fabiano Caruana has the black pieces against GM Sergei Zhigalko, rated 117 points below him.
Remaining schedule + Playchess commentary
After every round there will be special wrap-up commentary on Playchess. This starts at 20:00h Server time (= CET, = , 23:00h Moscow, 19:00h London, 3 p.m. New York, 12:00 noon California, 03:00h Beijing, 00:30h New Delhi – you can find the time in your location here). Commentary is in English.
| Day | Date | Time | Program | Playchess commentary |
| Saturday | March 24 | 15:00 | Round 5 | Lawrence Trent |
| Sunday | March 25 | 15:00 | Round 6 | Lawrence Trent |
| Monday | March 26 | Free Day | ||
| Tuesday | March 27 | 15:00 | Round 7 | Sam Collins |
| Wednesday | March 28 | 15:00 | Round 8 | Sam Collins |
| Thursday | March 29 | 15:00 | Round 9 | Robert Ris |
| Friday | March 30 | 15:00 | Round 10 | Robert Ris |
| Saturday | March 31 | 13:00 | Round 11 | Valeri Lilov |
| Saturday | March 31 | 20:00 | Closing | |
| Sunday | April 01 | Departure | ||
LinksSome of the games are being broadcast live on the official web site and some 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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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