V Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival

Vassily Ivanchuk and Dmitry Andreikin were the only super grandmasters in the field and thus the Elo favourites — by chance, they had to compete in the last round of the tournament against each other. Both had scored 7.0/9 and among those sharing first place. A win would ensure at least joint victory, a draw risked a large tie, which would not be enough for Ivanchuk to reach a playoff on account of his shock first round loss which negatively impacted his Buchholz score.

Ivanchuk had earlier missed a chance to take the lead in the penultimate round when he offered a draw in severe time-pressure with a winning (but tricky) position:

Ivanchuk repeated with Nc3+ but Qe7 (threatening d5) was a path to victory

Everything ready for the start of the last round at #SunwaySitges @Anna_Chess @SusanPolgar @chesscom @ChessBase @chess24com @ChessBomb pic.twitter.com/3JEST9eXzI

— Sunway Chess Open (@SunwayChessOpen) 23. Dezember 2018

In the last round the players were fighting, but both are also extremely experienced professionals who prefer to avoid excessive risks, especially against a peer. A draw gave Andreikin a shot at a first-place playoff depending on the result of the other head-to-head between leaders.

On the adjacent board, the young Spaniard Alvar Alonso Rosell faced the Frenchman Romain Edouard. Alonso is not well-known abroad and fans may be surprised to learn that he is not a chess professional, unlike his co-leader opponent Edouard who is the Editor-in-Chief of Thinkers Publishing and a member of the French national team. Edouard opted for a relatively passive game, which gave the ambitious Alonso a chance to gradually gain the upper hand:

The Catalan: A complete repertoire for White!

The Catalan is one of the most solid openings for White. It forms part of the large and strong fianchetto family in which White builds his strategy mainly around the bishop on g2. Grandmaster Victor Bologan covers all of Black’s replies to the Catalan, some of which can even transpose to other openings such as the Tarrasch System and the Queen’s Indian. Suffice it to say that the Catalan rules!

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A brave performance of the Spanish grandmaster, which earned him the tournament victory. Before the round, the organisers had ventured a little speculation whether Alonso would have been quite happy with a draw in the last game: 

Russian Champion 2018, GM Andreikin, drew his game against GM Àlvar Alonso earlier today, and they both enter last round on top of the leaderboard. They both may be happy if they draw their last-round games and secure a place in the final playoff @Macauley64 @peterdoggers pic.twitter.com/4vH73Nmkl7

— Sunway Chess Open (@SunwayChessOpen) 23. Dezember 2018

His performance earned him the EUR €5,000 first prize, and was particularly notable considering he entered the tournament seeded just 27th.

Seven players finished the ten-round tournament with 7½ points, but the tournament rules, rather unusually, called for a playoff for any of the top four spots, so the day was not yet over for Grandmasters Dmitry Andreikin, Krishnan Sasikiran and Ernesto Inarkiev. The latter had the best Buchholz score and so was seeded into a final match to face the winner of Andreikin vs Sasikiran. The format was two blitz games followed (if tied) by a single sudden death ('Armageddon') game. The players traded wins before Sasikiran advanced by winning the sudden death game.

Against Inarkiev, Sasikiran won the first game, but Inarkiev battled back in the second to force a final sudden-death game. This game ended tragically for the Indian who flagged in a completely winning position up a piece and two pawns.

All playoff games

The closed Sicilian

For players who lack either the time or inclination to study reams of opening theory the Closed Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 followed by 3.g3) is an excellent choice. The two great exponents of this method of play were World Champions Vassily Smyslov and Boris Spassky. These days it’s the top English Grandmasters Michael Adams and Nigel Short who are its leading exponents.

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The tournament has increasingly gained international attention as both a strong Open for GMs and norm seekers and a holiday destination for amateurs replete with interesting side events like the tapas workshop held outdoors on a beautiful afternoon.

The non-chess programme is as strong as the open tournament itself | Photo: sunwaychessfestival.com

Part of the intrigue this year was thanks to the presence of a cadre of extremely strong junior players, including the Indian IM Gukesh who narrowly missed out on a chance to become the youngest GM ever. He, along with young GMs Praggnanandhaa and Sarin finished with 6½ points.

Live commentary webcasts

Commentary by IM Anna Rudolf and FM Leontxo Garcia on Round 10 begins at 4:35 in the video player below. Click or tap a video in the playlist to view prior rounds.

Due to technical difficulties with the on-site video, the tiebreak is not replayable

All available games

Final standings (top 35)

... 183 Players

Klaus Besenthal contributed reporting.

Links

• Official site
• Full results (Chess-results)