Chess Classic: Double or hattrick?

Report by Eric van Reem

546 players started in the Ordix Open today. Many, many top grandmasters are among them like Shirov, Radjabov, Bacrot and Aronian, to name just a few. Surprisingly, Alexander Grischuk started as well. Anand's challenger apparently wants to win his third Ordix Open title in a row, but does he have enough energy to play a tough tournament like the Ordix, which he dominated in 2003 and 2004, and two more games against Anand in the evening? In the evening matches, the Tiger from Madras tried to decide the Grenke Leasing match today but Grischuk easily won the sixth game. The Chess960 match between Svidler and Almasi will be decided on the last day, but it will be very difficult for the challenger to win the match, because Svidler won the sixth game. He only needs half a point tomorrow.

The tournament hall is on the banks of the river Rhein

An Einstein exhibition on a barge outside the playing venue

Ordix Open – Magnificent Seven leaders of the pack

Seven players still have a perfect score after the first five rounds of the Ordix Open. You could compare them with the characters from the movie “The Magnificent Seven”: a legendary western from 1960, directed by John Sturges, with fine actors like Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. 'Magnificent Seven' is an analogy for living the brave life.

Alexander Morozevich plays against the Lord Mayor of Mainz. It's a genuine game, since Jens Beutel is playing in the Ordix Open and has scored 2/5 so far.

Beutel - Morozevich
CCM5 - Ordix Open (1), 2005
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 Qc7 5.Be2 b6 6.d3 Bb7 7.0-0 Nc6 8.Be3 New move. So far the Mayor has been playing Sicilian theory 8...Nf6 9.h3 Be7 10.Nd2 Nd4 11.f4 0-0 12.Bf3 Nxf3+ 13.Nxf3 d5 14.e5 d4 15.exf6 Bxf6 16.Bd2 dxc3 17.Bxc3 Qxf4 18.Bxf6 Qxf6 19.Qe2 Rad8 20.Ne5 Qe7 21.Rad1 f6 22.Ng4 e5 23.Ne3 g6 24.Qg4 Kh8 25.Nc2 f5 26.Qg3 f4 27.Qe1 Qg5 28.Qf2 h5 29.Rd2 h4 30.Ne1

The chess-playing Lord Mayor has been hanging on for respectable 30 moves. Now comes the undiplomatic final attack by Morozevich: 30...f3 31.Kh2 fxg2 32.Qxf8+ Rxf8 33.Rxf8+ Kg7 0-1.

The indefatigable Alexander Grischuk playing in the Ordix Open

One of the brave chess players in Mainz is Alexander Grischuk, who is not only playing a tough match against Vishy Anand, but he decided to play the Ordix Open to “win a few games”. He had a horrible start against 14-year old Reinhold Müller. He played 127 moves in his first game and was lucky that the young German, Elo rating 2134, lost a completely drawn rook ending with a few seconds left on the clock. But Grischuk seems to have found his confidence after that game, because he won all the other games in the Ordix Open today and is leading the pack with a 100% score.

The Ordix Open, with WGM Natalia Kiseleva vs GM Zigurds Lanka in the front

There are six more magnificent players with the same score: Teimour Radjabov, Alexander Morozevich, Igor Glek, Arkadij Naiditsch, Rainer Buhmann and the winner of the FiNet Open, Levon Aronian, who plays great chess in Mainz. Never before has a player managed to win the Chess960 Open and the Ordix Open. Will the 22- year old Armenian be the first player to do so? Or will Grischuk score a hattrick? We will find out tomorrow, when six more rounds will be played. Round number 6 will start at 10.00 and the top boards will be broadcast live on this site. The technicians had significant trouble getting the games live on the Net. A nasty computer virus caused many problems and headaches.

Etienne Bacrot, France, vs Antoaneta Stefanova, Bulgaria

Alexandra Kosteniuk is playing a very good Chess Classic tournament this year. She showed not only some good games in the FiNet Open, which she enjoys very much according to her website (“I love Chess960!”) but she plays very well in the Ordix Open too. She will particularly be pleased with her great victory over Ivan Sokolov. She played against the Dutchman in the FiNet Chess960 Open and lost that game. In the last round of the day she drew against Zvaginsev and now has 4,5 points. Alexandra's next tournament will be the Russian Championship (men) in Kazan, early September.

“I won my first game against Jussupow!”, Dirk Poldauf, editor of the German magazine “Schach”, smiled. “However, I did not play Artur, but his wife Nadia.” The Jussupow children, Alexander, rating 1943 and Ekatarina, rated 1992, also play in the Ordix Open. Yesterday, the Jussupow kids won the special youth prices in the FiNet Open. The two young stars play for chessclub SK Krumbach.

Top standings after five rounds:

Chess Classic organiser Hans-Walter Schmitt with main arbiter Sven Noppes

Children's club

Talking about kids, the Children's Club next to the press room is getting quite popular. More and more parents have discovered the Children's Club sign and take a look the room in which the children can play Chess and Chesster, watch a video or DVD, play with toys or grab a book. The parents can leave their children for a couple of hours in the Club, because professional youth coaches take care of the children. Svala van Reem brought her two kids Dennis and Nils to the club: “My husband is working in the press room in Mainz and normally I don't have the opportunity to visit him during the tournament. Let's be honest: a chess tournament is not very exciting for young children. The organisation has made a very good move by installing this Club here in Mainz. The boys can play in the Kids Club, meet other children from different countries and I can either watch the games, relax a bit or take a walk outside. I like this idea a lot and I think that other organisers should think about it as well to make their tournaments more family-friendly”. Cornelia Schmitt, the wife of main organiser Hans-Walter Schmitt was also happy. ”I met a chess player who just went downstairs to take a look at the Club to see how the room looked like and what was going on. He told to me that he would be back next year...with his children.”

Matches on Saturday “I tried not to win against Vishy”

Alexander Grischuk might have been a bit tired after the five Ordix games, because in his first game of the day against Vishy Anand the players agreed to share the point after 22 moves.

Day three of the Rapid Chess match Anand (right) vs Grischuk

In the second game of the Grenke Leasing championship the Indian GM sacrificed a pawn and started an attack. However, this time, Grischuk kept his cool and eventually won the game after 49 moves. “After 10 moves I was winning”, Grischuk said, and Anand agreed: ”Well, this was one of these games. You know you shouldn't do it, but you play the bad moves.”

"You know you shouldn't do it, but you play the bad moves" – Anand

In the press conference Grischuk revealed some details about his sudden presence in the Ordix Open: “I have not won a game in the last three months, and I needed to win a few games. The first game of the day was the most difficult one. I decided to play the Ordix this morning: I missed breakfast and I thought: what am I going to do today? I thought it was too boring to spend the day alone, so I decided to give it a shot”.

Playing in two events simultaneously: Alexander Grischuk

Finally Grischuk joked: “I tried not to win a game against Vishy, but OK, I won the sixth game. Tomorrow I am going to play from 10 to 10”. The match is not decided yet, although Anand only needs half a point to win his 8th Chess Classic title. The Tiger leads 4-2. Two more games will be played on Sunday.

• Replay the day three games in JavaScript
• All games played so far in PGN

FiNet Match: Svidler close to decision

Chess960 Match with Zoltan Almasi (left, Hungary) vs Peter Svidler (Russia)

In the fifth game of FiNet Chess960 match, Almasi once again had a very good position, but he had not enough time to win the game. “Yes, time is a big problem for me in this match”, Almasi said in the press conference. Peter Svidler has other problems: “As usual I did not get anything out of the opening in the first game. I sacrificed a pawn later in the game but since I had enough compensation, Zoltan could not win. And in the second game of the day I tried something different, I did not want to have a symmetrical position. In the end, Zoltan had no time left and my attack was too strong”. This match is not decided as well, Svidler is leading 4-2.

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