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The
2012 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is taking place from Tuesday, 24th January
to Thursday, 2nd February 2012 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The event is
the tenth in the series held on the Rock, the second to be sponsored by Tradewise
Insurance with technical support by Gibtelecom.
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.
Frisbee on the beach – while much of Europe is being hit by a killer
freeze...
... our friends in Gibralter (US players Teddy Coleman, Molner Mackenzie
and Marc
Arnold are on the Mediterranean beach in short-sleeved T-shirts
GM Mlos Pavlovic from Serbia and WGM Jovana Vojinovic of Montenegro enjoy
the sun...
... and Jovana actually scales a seashore boulder to pose with the chess
piece
How many pictures do you want? Why so many? Come on, guys.
GM Sergei Movsesian of Armenia, Jovana Vojinovic, IM Mariya Muzychuk of
Ukraine
and Husein Aziz Nezad of Qatar climb the hill to visit the Barbary
Macaque monkeys
Sergei makes acquaintance with one of Gibraltar's most popular inhabitants...
... and Husein Aziz appears to have a friend for life
Very nice headgear, Mariya! Take it home with you...
Which brings us to the subject: what is our "little monkey" doing (seriously, we are told that "Hou Yifan" translates to that). The 17-year-old women's world champion is simply sweeping GMs under the carpet, as in her eighth round encounter with the very strong Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem. Yifan, rated over 100 points below Liem, sacrificed two pawns in a Sicilian Scheveningen to launch an assault on the black king which eventually caused her opponent to crack.
This game left Yifan sharing top position with Michael Adams, both with 6.5/8 points, but with the Chinese girl chalking up a higher performance (2859). With this score she stands to gain 26 – twenty-six – rating points on the next FIDE list.
Our hero: women's world champion Hou Yifan from China
At fourteen Hou Yifan became the youngest female player ever to qualify for
the title of Grandmaster, and at sixteen the youngest World Chess Champion in
history (men's or women's). In the most
recent FIDE rating list she is ranked as the No. 1 girl player in the world,
the No. 2 female player – behind Judit Polgar, whom she beat on Monday
– and the No. 10 junior player of any gender. She is only the third female
player to achieve a FIDE rating of over 2600.
Hou's outstanding chess career is continuing at a pace. In June 2011, she took
part in the AAI International GM Tournament in India and in August, won clear
first place in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011-2012 tournament in Rostov, Russia.
She comfortably retained her World Championship title winning a match 5½-2½
against Humpy Koneru in November 2011.
Rk. |
Ti. | Name | FED |
Rtg |
Pts. |
Perf |
| 1 | GM | Hou Yifan | CHN | 2605 | 6.5 | 2859.0 |
| 2 | GM | Adams Michael | ENG | 2724 | 6.5 | 2843.0 |
| 3 | GM | Short Nigel D | ENG | 2677 | 6.0 | 2790.0 |
| 4 | GM | Mamedyarov Shakhriyar | AZE | 2747 | 6.0 | 2778.0 |
| 5 | GM | Sasikiran Krishnan | IND | 2700 | 6.0 | 2750.0 |
| 6 | GM | Almasi Zoltan | HUN | 2717 | 6.0 | 2748.0 |
| 7 | GM | Howell David W L | ENG | 2603 | 6.0 | 2737.0 |
| 8 | GM | Movsesian Sergei | ARM | 2700 | 6.0 | 2726.0 |
| 9 | GM | Gopal G N | IND | 2566 | 6.0 | 2720.0 |
| 10 | GM | Svidler Peter | RUS | 2749 | 6.0 | 2714.0 |
| 11 | GM | Bologan Viktor | MDA | 2680 | 6.0 | 2708.0 |
| 12 | GM | Negi Parimarjan | IND | 2641 | 6.0 | 2692.0 |
| 13 | GM | Shirov Alexei | LAT | 2710 | 6.0 | 2691.0 |
| 14 | GM | Akobian Varuzhan | USA | 2617 | 6.0 | 2649.0 |
| 15 | GM | Rapport Richard | HUN | 2543 | 6.0 | 2646.0 |
| 16 | GM | Salem A R Saleh | UAE | 2505 | 6.0 | 2623.0 |
| 17 | GM | Le Quang Liem | VIE | 2714 | 5.5 | 2718.0 |
| 18 | GM | Polgar Judit | HUN | 2710 | 5.5 | 2679.0 |
| 19 | GM | Dzagnidze Nana | GEO | 2535 | 5.5 | 2653.0 |
| 20 | GM | Brunello Sabino | ITA | 2581 | 5.5 | 2652.0 |
| 21 | GM | Fridman Daniel | GER | 2660 | 5.5 | 2622.0 |
| 22 | FM | Kuipers Stefan | NED | 2391 | 5.5 | 2611.0 |
| 23 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | FRA | 2699 | 5.5 | 2610.0 |
| 24 | GM | Kulaots Kaido | EST | 2581 | 5.5 | 2608.0 |
| 25 | GM | Zhu Chen | QAT | 2472 | 5.5 | 2606.0 |
| 26 | GM | Erdos Viktor | HUN | 2634 | 5.5 | 2605.0 |
| 27 | GM | Gustafsson Jan | GER | 2643 | 5.5 | 2601.0 |
| 28 | GM | Cramling Pia | SWE | 2491 | 5.5 | 2597.0 |
| 29 | IM | Muzychuk Anna | SLO | 2580 | 5.5 | 2592.0 |
| 30 | GM | Sutovsky Emil | ISR | 2703 | 5.5 | 2586.0 |
| 31 | GM | Nabaty Tamir | ISR | 2563 | 5.5 | 2582.0 |
| 32 | IM | Dvirnyy Daniyyl | ITA | 2492 | 5.5 | 2541.0 |
| 33 | GM | Iturrizaga Edoardo | VEN | 2649 | 5.5 | 2509.0 |
| 34 | GM | Del Rio De Angelis Salvador G | ESP | 2531 | 5.5 | 2501.0 |
| 35 | GM | Womacka Mathias | GER | 2455 | 5.5 | 2399.0 |
Excerpt from the Gibraltar Chess Festival live commentary by GM Simon Williams.
The exciting climax of round eight with dual-game commentary on Hou Yifan vs.
Le Quang Liem and Artur Jussupow vs. Alexei Shirov.
Alexei Shirov shows us his victory over Artur Jussupow, which is a candidate for best game prize
Master Class with IM Anna Zatonskih, who analyses a game she played in 2004 against Jan Votava.You will hear the discriptions of plans that went through her mind during the game – and also enjoy her very charming accent.
Photos: Zeljka Malobabic – Videos by Macauley Peterson
LinksThe 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 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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