Ultimate Blitz Challenge

There has been great excitement in America for the past two days.  The top three finishers in the U.S. Championship – Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura – were joined by Garry Kasparov in a special exhibition blitz tournament. The four players faced each other in three round-robins per day for two days, for a total of 18 games. There were small breaks between rounds (1-2 minutes) and longer breaks between each round-robin (10-15 minutes). The time control was five minutes per player per game, with a three-second delay (not increment) each move. For many, the real excitement was to see how Garry would fare against three of the top players in current chess and spectators were not disappointed.  The chess site Chess24.com achieved record numbers of hits for the matches and Kasparov, although not victorious overall, played some sparkling chess, finishing only one and a half points behind Nakamura in first place.  For Caruana it was a sobering experience and it was fascinating to see the world number two put firmly in his place in the final game below, a terrific end to the tournament.

White: Fabiano Caruana (2795)            Black: Garry Kasparov (2812)

Ultimate Blitz Challenge: Round 18

Game of the Week 9

No question about this contender for Game of the Week. Anyone who has read yesterday’s report from the Bridge match will have noticed that not only was there just one Broadstairs winner on the night but it was a giant-killing of Goliath proportions. Poor Mr Wisman will not thank me for featuring him on the receiving end of a second Game of the Week this season but then he does have the consolation of being a member of a Millar Cup-winning team. In the final position resignation may seem premature but time trouble was a factor.  For Bob Cronin it was a triumph that he won’t forget for a long time.

White: Arnaud Wisman (173)            Black: Bob Cronin (112)

Millar Cup: Broadstairs v Bridge B 

White resigns

Millar Cup v Bridge B (a)

Broadstairs     1                Bridge B           6

1 David Faldon (175) 0-1         Richard Eales  (202)
2 Paul Carfrae (131) 0-1         Vishnu Singh (195)
3 John Couzens (118) 0-1         Alan Atkinson (173)
4 Bob Cronin (112) 1-0         Arnaud Wisman (173)
5 Andy Flood (111) 0-1         David Shire (161)
6 Michael Doyle (89) 0-1         Patrick Burns (142)
7 def 0-1

David Faldon writes:

Six players travelled to Bridge on a wet Monday in April in search of a miracle … and it didn’t happen. Still, we tried hard. The star of the night was Bob C who produced a fantastic game to defeat a player 61 points higher graded, and it wasn’t all a one-move trick either. Bob got what looked to me a dubious position in the opening, with the pawns in front of his king too far advanced, but he turned the negative into a positive and used the advanced pawns to crash through with his own winning attack. Splendid! Most of the other games went roughly as advertised, though none of the games were exactly easy for the winners. Paul in particular put up a terrific defence with the black pieces against a 195-rated opponent and I got in a queen sacrifice to chase my opponent’s king. Unfortunately for me, Richard defended very well and exchanged down to a tricky ending that I didn’t quite manage to draw. Many thanks to all of the Broadstairs guys for putting up such a good resistance and congratulations to Bridge B as this result means that they win this year’s Millar Cup, narrowly ahead of Folkestone and Bridge A.

Hargreaves Shield v Woodnesborough (h)

Broadstairs  2½     Woodnesborough  1½

1. Paul Carfrae   (131) 0-1    John Thorley (122)
2. John Couzens (118) ½-½    David Erwee (108)
3. Bob Cronin (112) 1-0    Brian Rodwell (98)
4. Andy Flood   (111) 1-0    Roy Dawson (72)

Andy Flood writes:

And so a successful season came to an end for Broadstairs, the undefeated Hargreaves Shield Champions 2015/16. No more busting for the Gullbuster who had to settle for a draw. Houdini didn’t manage an escape losing on Board 1. First to finish Broadstairs Bob ended the season undefeated with a convincing win on Board 3 and yours truly managed to finish off a stubborn opponent to secure a 2½ – 1½ win for Broadstairs in a very close overall match against the anticipated runners-up Woodnesborough.

News from China

Regular visitTeam China 2ors to this site may be wondering what is happening with the new stars of chess, the Chinese, whom we have featured from time to time. Well, the latest FIDE list has just been published and China has three players in the top twenty, second only to Russia: Ding Liren (9), Li Chao (15) and Yu Yangyi (20). Where is Wei Yi, you may ask? Well, he comes in at 39 behind three more Chinese players so he still has some ground to make up. Time is on his side, however. Recently, he represented his country in the Asian Nations Cup (Wei Yi third from left in the team photo) where he had mixed fortunes as did his team which could only finish second to India. However, he managed to fit in one classic king hunt typical of his style in the round 3 match against Vietnam.

White:  Wei Yi (2714)          Black: Thien Hai Dao (2481)

Asian Nations Cup (Dubai) 2016  

 Black resigns