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The 2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is taking place from Monday, 24 January to Thursday, 3 February 2011 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The event, which is open to all, is the ninth in the series held on the Rock, but the first one to be sponsored by Tradewise Insurance. The rate of play: 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start. There is a special women's award for the hightest performance by a female player, with a prize of £10,000. In addition there are a number of subsiduary tournaments.
It warmed the cockles of my heart that there were English players on both board one and two of the Masters. It was fascinating to look at the different approaches of our two English players.
Nigel Short (above right) played a quite extraordinary new variation with the black pieces, taking the fight to his illustrious opponent, Vassily Ivanchuk, right from the start. It isn’t clear whether he should have drawn the endgame, but he eventually went down. Meanwhile, Michael Adams rapidly exchanged off into an inferior endgame, but one which he drew with consummate ease.
Thus four of the top six games were drawn (a normal percentage). Many people think that drawn games must, by their very nature, be inferior to those with a positive result. This is nonsense. A perfectly correctly played game will be drawn. After all, a drawn football match may be much better than one which is decisive.
On the other hand the Dzagnidze-Vallejo Pons game (1-0) was utterly enthralling. Another clear candidate for the £1,000 Best Game Prize was that between Akobian and Mikhalevski. The Israeli played an unusual variation of the Benoni. OK, there may have been errors and imperfections, but it was exciting. Chess is a very complex game and the very best will still have mistakes.
Yesterday I rushed to contact my associate John Saunders to get him to take a picture of the wonderful double rainbow that could be seen from the playing hall. I thought of telling the players they could stop their clocks to see the phenomenon, but thought better of it. A pity – I could then have made the play on words ‘rainbow stopped play’.
Spectators: Natalija Pogonina, Nana Dzagnidze, Nadezhda and Tatiana Kosintseva
We now know the number of entries in the whole event. 66 in Challengers B (there were 55 in the first event) 40 in Amateur B (30). The total number of players is 306 from about 54 federations. This is a record and the 231 in the Masters comes close to the maximum 240 the two halls can hold.
The peninsula of Gibraltar, just 7000 square kilometres in size, is home to Europe's only Barbary Macaque population. These "rock apes" are descended from North African populations, and there are currently some 230 animals in five troupes, occupying the area of the Upper Rock and living apparently on tourist gifts. They are considered Gibraltar's unofficial national animal, and a photo op with the macaques is a must for the chess tournament participants.
Addendum: We are informed by Abel Ganz of France that there is also a population of around 280 Barbary Macaques on the Montagne des Singes in Alsace, France.
Get ready, guys, best behavious. It's the chess crowd again...
Yerazik Khachatourian of Norway with a friend (this has to be our front
page thumb!)
Ukrainian IM Inna Gaponenko Inna with her macaca acquaintance
GM Viktorija Cmilyte of Lithuania
Experts will know what form of social interaction this
cercopithecide is performing on WGM Natalija Pogonina
You gotta take off the cap, Natalia dear, if you want me to
look for parasites (GM Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine)
I have always been particularly fond of Georgian IMs (like Salome Melia)
Okay, guys, show me how this chess thing works...
You got to pose with two beautiful GMs, now it is my turn, dammit!
A view of the Caleta Hotel tournament venue from the Upper Rock
What it feels like to be up there, with the monkeys and the wind...
One of the luckiest men in the world: Tournament Director GM Stuart Conquest,
here with
Natalija 'n Salome 'n Natalia 'n Inna 'n Viktorija 'n Yerazik (and ne'er a monkey
in sight)
Photos by Zeljka Malobabic and John Saunders
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LinksA selection of 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! |
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