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French Grandmaster Maxime Lagarde is the pace-setter at the traditional Rilton Cup, with 4½ out of five rounds played. He is joined at the top of the leaderboard by Gopal G.N. whose only draw was against the top-seeded Israeli GM Tamir Nabaty. Nabaty trails by half a point, leading a group of 15 players with 4.0/5. Among them are some well-known veteran names, such as GM Sergey Volkov from Russia, GM Bartlomiej Heberla from Poland and Spanish GM (now living in Sweden) Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez, but also relative newcomers like 15-year old GM Awonder Liang from the USA.
GM Maxime Lagarde | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund
On New Year's Eve, Lagarde converted an advantageous rook endgame against Spain's Miguel Santos Ruiz, which illustrates a useful concept:
Chess Endgames 8 - Practical Rook Endgames
Rook endings are amongst the most frequently encountered endgames there are, and so your training effort will be quickly repaid in the form of half and full points. Knowing even a few rules of thumb and key methods makes life a great deal easier and provides a guiding light even in complex positions. This DVD focuses on the important themes which are to be found in common rook endings.
At first glance, you might think it makes sense to advance to b3 to support the b-pawn's advance from c2, but this merely loses time. 41...Kb5 is correct, pacifying the white rook after 42.Ra1 b3 43.Ke3 b2 44.Rb1 Ka4 and the king soon arrives on a2.
A 19-year-old Danish IM, Jesper Sondergaard Thybo (already rated 2519), was surprisingly among the players leading the tournament after four rounds. The 22nd seed played a nice attack in Round 2 against the 16-year-old Norwegian FM Tryggestad. The game between them showed a common theme in open tournaments: in the face of a fierce attack it takes a cool head to mount a successful defence — possible in this case but extremely difficult:
Williams main teaching method behind this set of two DVDs is to teach you some simple yet effective set ups, without the need to rely on memorising numerous complicated variations.
Jesper Sondergaard Thybo and Andreas Garberg Tryggestad | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund
The buzzing analysis room at #RiltonCup #chess @RiltonCup pic.twitter.com/4IWNI7eW3X
— ChessBase India (@ChessbaseIndia) December 29, 2018
| Rk. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | |
| 1 | GM | Lagarde Maxime | 2616 | 4,5 | 13,5 |
| 2 | GM | Gopal G.N. | 2582 | 4,5 | 13,0 |
| 3 | GM | Nabaty Tamir | 2670 | 4,0 | 15,5 |
| 4 | IM | Yeoh Li Tian | 2508 | 4,0 | 15,0 |
| 5 | GM | Urkedal Frode Olav Olsen | 2537 | 4,0 | 14,0 |
| 6 | GM | Volkov Sergey | 2583 | 4,0 | 14,0 |
| 7 | GM | Heberla Bartlomiej | 2550 | 4,0 | 13,5 |
| 8 | GM | Lalith Babu M R | 2529 | 4,0 | 13,5 |
| 9 | GM | Karthikeyan Murali | 2591 | 4,0 | 13,0 |
| 10 | GM | Gajewski Grzegorz | 2598 | 4,0 | 13,0 |
| 11 | GM | Kobalia Mikhail | 2620 | 4,0 | 13,0 |
| 12 | GM | Donchenko Alexander | 2604 | 4,0 | 12,5 |
| 13 | GM | Liang Awonder | 2589 | 4,0 | 12,5 |
| 14 | FM | Pranav Anand | 2274 | 4,0 | 12,0 |
| 15 | GM | Santos Latasa Jaime | 2584 | 4,0 | 12,0 |
| 16 | GM | Moroni Luca Jr | 2564 | 4,0 | 11,0 |
| 17 | GM | Bellon Lopez Juan Manuel | 2334 | 4,0 | 10,0 |
| 18 | GM | Santos Ruiz Miguel | 2523 | 3,5 | 16,0 |
| 19 | IM | Valsecchi Alessio | 2497 | 3,5 | 14,0 |
| 20 | IM | Thybo Sondergaard Jesper | 2519 | 3,5 | 14,0 |
... 161 players
The tournament takes a New Years Day pause before the final round rounds, ending on January 5th. Each round is accompanied by daily live commentary with the legendary GM Ulf Andersson and WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni. Replay the 5th round webcast below:
Klaus Besenthal contributed reporting.
