Thursday, November 24, 2011

Ivanchuk Beats Nakamura At Tal Memorial - Chess.com

Ivanchuk Beats Nakamura At Tal Memorial - Chess.com


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Ivanchuk Beats Nakamura At Tal Memorial

Submitted by SonofPearl

Three rounds of deadlock were finally broken in round seven at the Tal Memorial when Vassily Ivanchuk took full advantage of some poor opening and middlegame play from Hikaru Nakamura to win with the black pieces.

So with just two rounds remaining Ivanchuk joins Aronian, Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen and Karjakin in a five-way tie for first place on 4/7 points.

The other games in round seven were not without interest or fighting spirit, but all ended as draws.

In such a close contest, the tie-break calculation could be vital. In the case of tied scores, the following tie-break methods are used:

  1. Number of games with black
  2. Result of direct encounter
  3. Coya system
  4. Sonnenborn-Berger
  5. Number of wins

The players who will have had 5 blacks and 4 whites when the tournament is completed are: Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi, Svidler, Karjakin and Gelfand.

To many draws in the Moscow 'hood? Who you gonna call? I-van-chuk!

ivanchuk-talmem2011-r7.jpg

Best of friends? Vishy Anand (left) and Magnus Carlsen at the post-match press conference

anand-carlsen-tal2011-rd7press.jpg

Lev Aronian (left) and Sergey Karjakin were evenly matched in their game

karjakin-aronian-tal2011Rd7.jpg

Ivanchuk and Aronian take a close interest in Kramnik's game with Gelfand

kramnik-gelfand-tal2011Rd7.jpg

The standings after seven rounds:

Aronian, Levon ARM 2802 4
Nepomniachtchi, Ian RUS 2730 4
Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2826 4
Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2763 4
Ivanchuk, Vassily
UKR 2775 4
Anand, Viswanathan
IND 2811
Svidler, Peter RUS 2755
Kramnik, Vladimir RUS 2800 3
Nakamura, Hikaru USA 2758
Gelfand, Boris ISR 2744

The pairings for round eight:

Magnus Carlsen
v Ian Nepomniachtchi
Levon Aronian
v Peter Svidler
Vladimir Kramnik
v Sergey Karjakin
Vassily Ivanchuk
v Boris Gelfand
Vishy Anand
v Hikaru Nakamura

The pairings for round nine:

Hikaru Nakamura
v Magnus Carlsen
Boris Gelfand
v Vishy Anand
Sergye Karjakin
v Vassily Ivanchuk
Peter Svidler
v Vladimir Kramnik
Nepomniachtchi
v Levon Aronian

Chess.com will have live coverage of the final round (round 9) at www.chess.com/tv.

The 2011 Tal Memorial runs from 16-25 November in Moscow. Games start at 15:00 local time (11:00 UTC), except the last round which is 2 hours earlier. The time control is 40 moves in 100 minutes, followed by 20 moves in 50 minutes, then 15 minutes to finish, with a 30 second increment from the start of the game. The total prize fund is €100,000 with the winner receiving €30,000.

The official site (in Russian). Pictures from Chess-News.ru.

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