SPICE and Gloria Arroyo Cup 2009

The Phillipine is on breaking news this week following the Ketsana typhoon that caused major flood in Manila. Information from Indonesian friend working there is the food is running out! So hopefully the situation get better as soon as possible.

On chess news,the Phillipino, GM Wesley So finished his first tourney in US, not very much successful with =8 and -1 out of 9. Wesley So is probably the main attraction to the tournament (at least from what I read in chessgames, chessdom, and susanpolgar's blog). The Group A, is a six players round robin, proved to be a tight competition and producing a high number of draw games. GM Yuriy Kuzubov from Ukraine is the lucky dude and proclaimed as the winner after winning the three way blitz tie-break.

On the B group something bit different and more decisive games. IM Ben Finegold is finally GM Ben Finegold and FM Danny Rensch now is an IM after drawing with IM Ray Robson. By saying this IM Ray Robson must hold on a while to get promoted to GM because he would only got it if he defeated Danny. Completed result :

Spice Cup 2009 Group A :

1-3. Kuzubov, Yuriy g UKR 2635 5½
1-3. Andreikin, Dmitry g RUS 2648 5½
1-3. Mamedov, Rauf g AZE 2645 5½
4-6. Hammer, Jon Ludvig g NOR 2583 4½
4-6. So, Wesley g PHI 2646 4½
4-6. Akobian, Varuzhan g USA 2626 4½

Spice Cup 2009 Group B :

1-3. Perelshteyn, Eugene g USA 2534 6
1-3. Bhat, Vinay g USA 2473 6
1-3. Finegold, Benjamin m USA 2513 6
4. Robson, Ray m USA 2491 5½
5. Papp, Gabor m HUN 2558 5
6-8.Rensch, Daniel f USA 2392 4
6-8. Kuljasevic, Davorin m CRO 2547 4
6-8. Antal, Gergely m HUN 2479 4
9. Diamant, Andre g BRA 2520 2½
10. Ippolito, Dean m USA 2455 2

full covered at Susan Polgar's blog.

The second chess news is exactly from Phillipine, the 4th Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Cup is finished yesterday. Playing in dramatic weather condition the tournament won by GM Anton Fillipov and tie breakers are GM Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam, GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran and GM Narayan Gopal Geetha of India .

Probably his first major tournament this year, Singaporean GM Wong Meng Kong started with 4.5 / 5 and temporary stands the highest, after that he'd been slowed down and finished with 5.5/9. Indonesian IM Tirto was struggling in middle-lower board with 4.5/9 drawing GM Ghaem Ehsan Maghami and GM Dao Thien Hai.

4th Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Cup , top standing:

1. GM FILIPPOV Anton UZB 2595 6,5
2. GM NGUYEN Ngoc Truong Son VIE 2589 6,5
3. GM GHAEMMAGHAMI Ehsan IRI 2579 6,5
4. GM GAGUNASHVILI Merab GEO 2564 6,5
5. GM GEETHA Narayan Gopal IND 2598 6,5
6. GM MCHEDLISHVILI Mikhael GEO 2613 6,0
7. GM ANTONIO Rogelio Jr. PHI 2557 6,0
8. IM DIMAKILING Oliver PHI 2434 6,0
9. GM VILLAMAYOR Buenaventura PHI 2426 5,5
10. GM WONG Meng Kong SIN 2403 5,5
11. GM KOTANJIAN Tigran ARM 2553 5,5
12. GM GOMEZ John Paul PHI 2521 5,5
13. IM BITOON Richard PHI 2490 5,5
14. GM ISMAGAMBETOV Anuar KAZ 2528 5,5
15. GM DAS Neelotpal IND 2471 5,5
16. SENADOR Emmanuel PHI 2367 5,5
17. GM GONZALES Jayson PHI 2457 5,5

full article can be found at ChessHeroes.

Saingan terkuat di SE Asia, Wesley So mengakhiri kampanye nya di Spice Cup 2009 US kurang begitu menyenangkan dengan delapan remis dan satu kali kalah. Kumpulan partai dari sini bisa di baca di Chessdom. Analisis Permainan Wesley So setelah diterjemahkan ke bahasa Indonesia melalui Google :

Hammer - So, 1-0
So - Kuzubov, 1/2 - 1/2
So - Mamedov, 1/2 - 1/2
So - Hammer, 1/2 - 1/2

Nanjing Pearl Spring and Woman Grand Prix 2009

Nanjing Pearl Grand Slam has started yesterday. The super strong tournament, perhaps strongest in Asia ever, is a 6 players round robin. Round one show two split point games from Topalov – Jakovenko and Wang Yue – Radjabov, but highlight was on Carlsen – Leko game. The still teenage GM not wasting time to use one of his mentor, Gary Kasparov, opening weapon, the Scotch and receive full point out of Leko. Official site is here along with Live transmission, of course in Asia comfortable time zone (yes!).

Women Grand Prix participants with FIDE President (photo from Chessbase)

Together with the super tournament is the Women Grand Prix consist of 10 ladies. For more photos on this ladies tournament as usual we can relied on Chessbase report. GM Nana Dzagnidze , who was playing in China since Yinzhao Cup and ZheJiang LiShui Open, won the first round against Ju Wenjun, same goes to Shen Yang and Mongolian's Batkhuyag Munguntuul. Apart from these participants strong player not playing is like Hou Yifan, Koneru Humpy and Antoaneta Stefanova. Last women grand prix was won by Konery Humpy.

Turnamen super Grand Slam kembali digelar di Nanjing China. Partai ronde 1 berakhir dengan dua remis antara si nomor 1 Topalov lawan Jakovenko dan si Wang Yue lawan Radjabov. Tapi yang seru adalah si anak remaja Magnus Carlsen yang menang lawan Peter Leko, menggunakan permainan Skotlandia. Ini adalah hasil dari pembelajaran Carlsen kepada Gary Kasparov seperti yang diungkapkan mereka ke masyarakat luar sebulanan lalu. Kedua partai bisa disimak di Chessdom, berikut terjemahan otomatis dari Google :

Siaran langsung kira-kira dimulai jam 3 sore di website resmi. Chessdom juga menampilkan analisis langsung tiap ronde.
Topalov – Jakovenko , ½ - ½
Carlsen – Leko, 1-0

Sementara itu berlangsung juga Grand Prix Catur Wanita dengan 10 peserta, putri tentunya. GM Nana Dzagnidze, Shen Yang dan Batkhuyag Munguntuul menang di ronde pertama. Sementara itu pecatur kuat yang tidak ikutan kali ini adalah Hou Yifan, Koneru Humpy dan Antoaneta Stefanova.

Nanjing Pearl Spring Chess Round 1:

Carlsen, Magnus-Leko, Peter 1-0 44 C45 Scotch Game
Topalov, Veselin-Jakovenko, Dmitry ½-½ 43 E06 Catalan
Wang Yue-Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ 38 E92 King's Indian Classical

Nanjing FIDE Women Grand Prix Round 1:

Dzagnidze, Nana-Ju Wenjun 1-0 88 E74 King's Indian
Munguntuul, Batkhuyag-Yildiz, Betul Cemre 1-0 36 D20 QGA
Shen Yang-Sebag, Marie 1-0 38 D43 Anti-Meran Gambit
Fierro Baquero, Martha L-Zhu Chen ½-½ 105 C90 Ruy Lopez
Mkrtchian, Lilit-Kovanova, Baira ½-½ 39 E32 Nimzo Indian 4.Qc2
Xu Yuhua-Zhao Xue ½-½ 48 B83 Sicilian Scheveningen

Zhejiang Lishui 2009 - Megaranto and Irene Games

GM Le Quang Liem of Vietname again finished as number one in Zhejiang Lishui Xingqiu Open. He had been won a prestigious trophy at Kolkatta some weeks prior. He is on the right path to become Viet version of Wesley So. According to earlier post in some sources, Le is on the line up in the 4th edition of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Cup, but perhaps due to this schedule he is not able to play there. Btw, IM Tirto is playing there. Now back to Zhejiang Lishui ...

GM Megaranto Susanto draw the last round against Wen Yang, in a ..errg 7 moves. This is perhaps because two of the top boards, Le Quang Liem-Liu Qingnan and Yu Yangyi-Zhou Weiqi also ended in a draw, in 12 and 16 movers. This is still not the less moves games, according to here, Wang Chen and Lu Shanglei agreed to a draw without even care to made a move.

By the way, the official chess-result was stopped updating the final round, so final standing shown below is only relied on the result from the live transmission and here.

1. GM Le Quang Liem VIE 2602 7.5
2. Yu Yangyi CHN 2509 6.5
3-10. GM Zhou Weiqi CHN 2593 6
GM Susanto Megaranto INA 2527 6
GM Wen Yang CHN 2538 6
Liu Qingnan CHN 2426 6
GM Wang Rui CHN 2435 6
Xiu Deshun CHN 2494 6
Zeng Chongsheng CHN 2323 6
WGM Zhang Xiaowen CHN 2391 6
11-13. Lou Yiping CHN 2398 5.5
Lu Yijie CHN 2330 5.5
Irene K. Sukandar INA 5.5 *
14. Ma Qun CHN 2337 5

* From the direct source , Irene was won her last round again IM Wu Xibin.

Games from the tournament, Susanto Megaranto - Le Quang Liem :

and Nana Dzagnidize-Irene Sukandar:

Kasparov-Karpov Valencia 2009 - A Gruenfeld and Semi Slav lesson

The moment most waited in chess in this year is now over. Kasparov had played a match with Karpov just as in the old days and also still dominated his eternal rival. The match finished in the following conclusion :

Rapid Gary Kasparov - Anatoly Karpov 3-1
Karpov, Anatoly - Kasparov, Garry 0-1 24 D72 Gruenfeld 3.g3
Kasparov, Garry - Karpov, Anatoly 1-0 28 D31 Semi-Slav Defence
Karpov, Anatoly - Kasparov, Garry 1-0 36 D72 Gruenfeld 3.g3
Kasparov, Garry - Karpov, Anatoly 1-0 33 D31 Semi-Slav Defence

Blitz Gary Kasparov - Anatoly Karpov 6-2
Kasparov, Garry - Karpov, Anatoly 0-1 60 D31 Semi-Slav Defence
Karpov, Anatoly - Kasparov, Garry ½-½ 17 D22 QGA
Kasparov, Garry - Karpov, Anatoly 1-0 51 D31 Semi-Slav Defence
Karpov, Anatoly - Kasparov, Garry 0-1 36 D72 Gruenfeld 3.g3
Kasparov, Garry - Karpov, Anatoly 1-0 56 D31 Semi-Slav Defence
Karpov, Anatoly - Kasparov, Garry 0-1 26 D02 Queen's Pawn Game

Kasparov, Garry - Karpov, Anatoly 1-0 96 D31 Semi-Slav Defence
Karpov, Anatoly - Kasparov, Garry ½-½ 25 D72 Gruenfeld 3.g3

As can be seen, both of them were having an intense conversation on two particular openings , the D72 Fianchetto Gruenfeld and D31 Semi-Slav. If somebody compiled a book for this match it will almost like an opening book for this two opening lines. The only concern is that these games were played under rapid & blitz time control.

D72 the Fianchetto Gruenfeld is the most interesting since it get both win by black and white, but for D31 Semi-Slav it's all won by White.

Kasparov............ - ..............Karpov

Karpov..............-.................. Kasparov

Fianchetto Gruenfeld (left) & Semi-Slav (right) ala Kasparov & Karpov

The next match will be on December this year and the place will be Paris. Meanwhile Anand will be intermezzoing in November by also played a rapid game with Karpov in Bastia and Ajaccio, both in France.

Bagi pembaca Indonesia berikut analysis pertandingan dari Chessdom setelah di translate ke Bahasa Indonesia melalui Google translate.

Partai 1 - Karpov - Kasparov 0-1

Partai 3 - Karpov - Kasparov 1-0

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.

Game from Dutch Championship 2009

The 2009 Dutch Championship is on round 7 today. As reported by chessvibe, the event is much weaker from what its should be. Tiviakov, the only Dutch's top ten was withdrawn due to schedule conflict. But still we got to see some GMs like GM Anish Giri and GM Friso Nijboer. Here in round 7 they met together in a King Indian game. Nijboer try to stick to a thematic pawn attack to kingside, but soon got his Queen trapped, right in front of her King. But by this 'sacrifice' Black still hoping some tactical play taking advantage of his very pawn that lock in the White King at g2. Interesting game to watch in live mode.
Official site http://nk.schaakbond.nl/

Berikut game dari kejuaraan Belanda 2009. GM termuda Anish Giri melawan GM Friso Nijboer yang sering menulis buku. Permainanannya adalah bertema pembelaan Raja Hindia. Di pembelaan ini Hitam biasanya berusaha memajukan bidak ke arah sayap raja dan bermain taktik disini berharap men skak raja Putih. Tapi sebelum bisa melakukan itu Hitam keburu dimatikan Ratunya oleh Putih, namun tetap ada sedikit serangan balik dari Hitam yang menarik untuk disimak.

[Event "Dutch Championship 2009"]
[Site "Haaksbergen"]
[Date "2009.09.18"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Giri, Anish"]
[Black "Nijboer, Friso"]
[Result "1-0"]

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Valentine's Chess Puzzle

Easy Sunday night puzzle taken from the 2009 Yinzhou Cup. Earlier the event was also called as 2nd Women World Team Chess Championship. China Team One then emerged as winner by only half point above Russian in Game Point, China 1, Russia and Ukraine all have the same match point of 12. Full final standing is to be found here.

A game by Valentina Gunina who is the best player of the tournament with 6.5/8.

Valentina Gunina-Siranush Andriasian

White to play and win Rate=Easy