Paco Vallejo and Nigel Short starting with victories
Report by GM Miso Cebalo
The most important news of the day is that Alexander Morozevich finally arrived in Reggio Emilia after two days of traveling. Our most sincere compliments for his tenacity!
It is quite logical that his game against Navara has been postponed for the rest day (the 1st of January), which means that they will meet each other only next year!
Considering what was going on today in the tournament hall, we could say that it was like the beginning of a wonderful friendship, sorry I mean a wonderful tournament. Those who have seen "Casablanca" know what I mean. Our compliments to the remaining 8 players for their fighting spirit.
The first game to finish was a fighting draw between Onischuk and Movsesian. Then a great disappointment for Italian chess fans, Michele Godena in his usual time trouble blundered a piece against Vallejo Pons in a slightly worse position.
Alexander Onischuk
After 4 hours of play, a second Italian hope, Fabiano Caruana, made draw against Ivanchuk in an interesting, very positional game, where the former was slightly better during some time. In the endgame both players refused to repeat the moves, but in the end they accepted such an outcome when all other possibilities were exhausted.
However, the beauty of the day was the game Short-Gashimov, where the young Azeri sacrificed first the exchange and then the knight in order to bring White’s king in the open air. Being a whole rook down he suddenly started to play in a positional way and somewhere on the road he refused to look for an eventual perpetual, continued to play for a win at all costs and at the end we witnessed the triumph of the material over a brave idea.
Nigel Short - Vugar Gashimov 1-0
Alexander Morozevich - David Navara (postponed to 1st January)
Fabiano Caruana - Vassily Ivanchuk 1/2
Francisco Vallejo Pons - Michele Godena 1-0
Alexander Onischuk - Sergei Movsesian 1/2
Alexander Morozevich - David Navara (postponed to 1st January)
Fabiano Caruana - Vassily Ivanchuk 1/2
Francisco Vallejo Pons - Michele Godena 1-0
Alexander Onischuk - Sergei Movsesian 1/2
Michele Godena
No comments:
Post a Comment