ZheJiang LiShui XingQiu Open 2009-Round 6

Two strong tournament is being held in China this week. First is the Maotai Prince Cup which seeing top of Chinamen on the play. Live website is here. The other tournament is the ZheJiang LiShui XingQiu Open 2009, which is attended by second layer of China players plus some of oversea invitee. Li Shui is the name of the city in Zhe Jiang province. Li Shui mean 'beautiful water' while XingQiu is mean 'chess', the word 象棋 actually should be pinyin-ized as 'Xiang Qi' but perhaps Xiang Qi will refer to Chinese chess and 'XingQiu' is the official spelling for chess.

Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem (2602) who just brought home the first prize at Kolkata is first seed. Beside him some other notable foreigners are WGM Nana Dzagnidize , who is on fourth seed abd then Indonesian top GM and WGM , Susanto Megaranto and Irene K. Sukandar.

On round five GM Susanto Megaranto clinched another full point over GM Wang Rui in a less than 30 moves Ruy Lopez. WGM Irene K. Sukandar is struggling with four draws. While writing up this blog both of them are facing strong opponents on round 6, Megaranto vs Le Quang Liem and Irene playing WGM Nana Dzagnidize. Soon Megaranto who applied a Trompowsky attack agree a less than 30 moves draw but Irene is fighting on and finally win over Nana. Perhaps this is the highest rated opponent of Irene since her encounter to GM Zhu Chen earlier this year. Holding Black side, Irene was went for a Queen exchange for two Rooks on move 20 in a Reti like opening.

Coming along are two Indonesians Gerhana CHKartina dan Yemy Jelsen.

Live transmission here and chess-result here.

Selamat ber-Lebaran dan berikut beberapa even catur yang sedang berlangsung, semoga bisa disimak di musim liburan ini. Di tengah gempita beberapa even catur dunia lain seperti dwitarung Kasparov - Karpov di Valencia, Short - Efimenko di Ukraina dan SPICE Cup di Texas, di mana Wesley So ikutan main, mari kita simak turnamen di China di mana GM Susanto dan WGM Irene bermain.


Turnamen ini bertajuk ZheJiang LiShui XingQiu Open, menurut penafsiran penulis yang masih pemula di mandarin, ZheJiang adalah nama propinsi di mana kota LiShui berada, Li berarti Cantik dan Shui berarti Air. Sedangkan XingQiu pasti ejaan buat kata Catur, karena karakter 象棋 bisa juga berarti Xiang Qi alias Catur Cina.


Hingga babak empat Susanto ada di posisi sharing tiga karena bernilai 3 sama dengan beberapa pemain lain. Di babak lima GM Wang Rui berhasil dikalahkan dalam permainan Spanyol/Ruy Lopez di bawah 30 langkah. Sedangkan Irene masih bertahan dengan empat draw dan di babak lima musti berhadapan dengan lawan tangguh WGM Nana Dzagnidize dari Georgia yang barusan bermain di Cina juga dalam kejuaran beregu Puteri. Pastilah dia lebih duluan beradaptasi dengan nasi ayam Hainan dan kepiting pedas (walaupun dua masakan ini beserta Bak kut teh tengah diklaim sebagai masakan national oleh negeri Jiran).

Hasil babak enam adalah, Susanto segera berdamai dengan Le setelah melalui 20 an langkah dalam permainan Trompowsky. Irene menang atas Nana, mungkin ini lawan dengan rating tertinggi Irene sejak pertemuannya dengan Zhu Chen. Irene memegang hitam dan bertukar Ratu demi dua Benteng. Lalu setelah langkah tiga puluhan berhasil memetik satu lagi perwira putih yang ditukar lawan dengan bidak Hitam. Sementara notasi bisa dilihat di siaran langsung di sini.