Surreal Sicilian in Dubai

We move the attention a bit to Middle East where Dubai host the 11th Chess Championship, happened from 25 April to 05 May 2009. Final standing is belong to three players with tie break :

1. GM Kotanjian, Tigran ARM 2552 7,0
2. GM Bocharov, Dmitry RUS 2606 7,0
3. GM Anastasian, Ashot ARM 2554 7,0

and many more players followed with 6,5 points.

From many games with sicilian opening, here are two selected as they are played by higher rate players. Surreal Sicilian is a collection of recent Sicilian games won by black in less than say 30 moves. Let see how this girls went out:

Nino Gurieli - Valeriy Neverov
B22 2.c3 Alapin variation

Khayala Isgandarova - Alex Fedorov
B30 Nimzovich-Rossolimo variation

Top finisher of the tournament, GM Tigran Kotanjian, photo from http://www.arabfide.com/dubaiopen2009/webalbum1/index.htm , curiously many of the chess set come without a cross affixed on the king piece, as on this photo.