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Photos by Sophie Triay and John Saunders
The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2017 began with 12 players above 2700. After three rounds only two of them are on a 100% score with 3.0/3 – Michael Adams and Nikita Vitiugov. In the third round Mickey got the better of the talented Romanian Deac Bogdan-Daniel.
The game was heading towards a draw when the young Romanian just blundered a pawn. A costly error as Michael picked up the pawn and mopped up the game.
Hikaru Nakamura played the most aggressive system in the Najdorf, but his opponent G.N. Gopal was excellently prepared, played an interesting exchange sacrifice and the game ended in a draw
Gopal explains his exchange sacrifice
Fabiano Caruana was able to beat his Mongolian opponent Tuvshitungs Batchimeg. Fabi now moves to 2.5/3.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was able to win with a cute little exchange sacrifice. It wasn't decisive and perhaps his opponent had a fine position, but the French GM was able to outplay his opponent and win the game.
Boris Gelfand drew his first round, but is now back with two wins
Peter Svidler was held to another draw in the third round. It was a crazily complicated game and Nitzan Steinberg has had a great start to the tournament with draws against MVL and Svidler
Vassily Ivanchuk was in danger of losing his game against IM Venkatachalam Saravanan. The Indian IM went wrong at some point and Chucky managed to win. This was after he lost on time yesterday. So Ivanchuk is on 2.0/3.
My position objectively was completely hopeless!
On the third board Yu Yangyi drew his game against 2015 World Junior Champion Mikhail Antipov
Nikita Vitiugov is on 3.0/3 after he beat German grandmaster Alexander Donchenko
Vadim Zviaginsev, the inventor of 1.e4 c5 2.Na3!? beat Kateryna Lagno and is now on 3.0/3
David Howell played the Caro Kann for the first time in his life and suddenly found out that he had very little space to manoeuvre! He drew his game against Sergey Grigoriants.
The game between Anna Muzychuk and Hou Yifan ended in a draw
The battle of sexes between Nigel Short versus Anna Zatonskih ended in a win for Nigel!
The prodigy from America Awonder Liang managed to hold GM S.P. Sethuraman to a draw
Ju Wenjun made short work of her opponent Ori Kobo and is now on 3.0/3
The most popular couple in Gibraltar is Laurent Fressinet and Valentina Gunina!
The duel between father and daughter: Bellon Lopez and Anna Bellon Cramling ended in a draw!
Top pairings for round 4 on 2017/01/27 at 15.00
Get the complete results + Challengers A + Amateur A
Many of the strongest players, including Fabiano Caruana and Nigel Short (who met in the first round), took part in the team blitz event. The strongest team probably is 'Howell's Honeys (Fabiano Caruana, David Howell, Tania Sachdev and Dorsa Derakhshani). Two rounds have been completed and you can check the standings here.
Gibraltar's Governor Ed Davies (left) visited the tournament hall. Along with him in the picture is the organizer of the event Brian Callaghan
Interviewed live by commentator British Women’s Champion Jovanka Houska on the daily internet show streamed across the world the Governor described the tournament as a wonderful event. “What has kept this competition so progressive, so alive and made it so successful is that every year there are more people, more initiatives and different spins on the competition,” he said.
Talking about how the tournament had grown he commented on how Gibraltar was a place which had “ambition, innovation and boldness”.“This competition is just testament to these attributes because Gibraltar goes about projecting itself in that way. The natural characteristics that make these things successful is what has happened here. Brian Callaghan had an idea, he had a vision, he was bold, innovative, and it has been a great success,” he added.
| The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the 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 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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