Jerusalem Masters: Svidler and Ivanchuk lead at halftime

by André Schulz
9/25/2024 – The Chess Federation of Israel is currently organising a chess festival in Jerusalem. The headliner of the event is a rapid chess invitational tournament. An open will also be played. At the end of the three-day event, 1000 chess fans will compete against 50 master players in a simultaneous match. After five rounds, Peter Svidler and Vasyl Ivanchuk (pictured) are sharing the lead in the Masters. | Photo: Fred Lucas / Tata Steel Masters 2012
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A 3-day chess festival

Jerusalem Chess MastersA highly competitive invitational tournament with ten top grandmasters is currently taking place in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Masters. The field consists of five players from Israel and five international players, namely Jorden van Foreest, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Peter Svidler, Daniil Dubov and Pavel Eljanov as the international representatives and Maxim Rodshtein, Ilia Smirin, Evgeny Postny, Avital Boruchovsky and Ido Gorshtein as players from the host country.

The tournament is being played as a single round-robin with a rapid-chess time control (15 minutes for the game plus 5 seconds per move).

The total prize fund amounts to 75,500 US dollars. The first prize is 30,000 US dollars.

Peter Svidler and Vasyl Ivanchuk, two of the top three players in the field, share the lead with 4/5 points going into the second day of action. The co-leaders have already faced each other, with Svidler holding a 37-move draw with the black pieces against his long-time colleague in the fourth round.

Standing in sole third place is Ilia Smirin, the second-highest rated Israeli representative in the field. Smirin faced the two current co-leaders at the outset of the event, losing to Ivanchuk in round 1 and drawing Svidler in round 2.

All games - Masters

Standings after round 5

Schedule of the Masters

Local time (CEST +1 hour)

Day 1: 24 September

Round 1 – 14.00
Round 2 – 15.00
Round 3 – 16.00
Round 4 – 17:00
Round 5 – 18:00

Day 2: 25 September

Round 6 – 14.00
Round 7 – 15.00
Round 8 – 16.00
Round 9 – 17.00

The Masters is part of a chess festival which also includes an open (featuring 308 players from 12 different countries) and concludes with a major simultaneous match on the third and final day of the event.

All games - Open

Simultaneous event

At the end of the event, on Thursday 26 September, a large simultaneous exhibition will be held on Safra Square with a thousand participants, who will be able to compete against the best players in Israel.

Safra Square is located in the Jerusalem Municipality complex, near the former Green Line between West and East Jerusalem, and is often used for major sporting events.

The simultaneous event will be contested by 50 masters, including five of the participants of the invitational tournament: Ilia Smirin, Maxim Rodshtein, Evgeny Postny, Avital Boruchovsky and Ido Gorshtein. Other strong players include the 17-year-old GM Yahli Sokolovsky, the U18 European Champion Noga Orian, GM Yehuda Gruenfeld and the country's best female player, Marsel Efroimski. GM Alik Gershon will commentate on the action.

Each of the professionals will play against 20 players simultaneously.

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André Schulz started working for ChessBase in 1991 and is an editor of ChessBase News.