Round One - Game #1

The inaugural round began (without GM Alexander Morozevich) and as expected in such a tournament, there were a few surprises.  What wasn't surprising was the tough games played throughout the round highlighted by the Sokolov-Simutowe marathon battle.  Most of the top seeds won as they wore down the opposition. Kenny Solomon put up a valiant effort against GM Alexander Grischuk in a double-edged contest which featured exchange sacks by both players. The Russian took advantage of Solomon's poor pawn structure and wrapped up the point in the ending.

Now the upsets… GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu had to give up a fighting draw with the Filipino Ronald Dableo and was the first of the top seeds to be held. Later, IM Morteza Mahjood of Iran upset Georgia's GM Zurab Azmaiparishvili who played a lackluster opening and was thoroughly outplayed.

Other top 25 players tasting defeat were GM Viktor Bologan against Filipino IM Mark Paragua and GM Krishnan Saskiran against the German IM, Leonid Kritz. In this game, both players tried to send each other to an early dinner as a violent Sicilian was thrown on the board.

In the diagrammed position, the Indian GM overlooked 24.Nf5! and pieces starting zipping across the board like stray bullets. After the smoke cleared, Kritz held the extra pawn and converted the win with clean technique.

In Kritz-Saskiran, white played 24.Nf5! and after a long series of exchanges and both bishop pairs remaining, white's a-pawn would decide.

Another Iranian would get on the scoreboard in this tournament as the well-known Eshan Ghaem Maghami beat the legendary Rafael Vaganian of Armenia. An exciting game occurred when Hikaru Nakamura traded blows with Russian Sergei Volkov. It appeared that the American star had a good position, but Volkov beat back the attack and started one of his own. As both players were in serious time pressure, it appeared that Nakamura was on the brink of defeat. In the diagram below, Nakamura sacked a piece to create threats and in the maze of tactics, Volkov erred and had to settle for a draw by three-fold repetition.

Neither the Indians, nor the Chinese are faring particularly well so far, but an exciting game occurred between Indian star Pentyala Harikrishna and China's Xu Jun. For someone of only 17 years old, Harikrishna has the maturity of someone much more seasoned.

In this battle of two Asian heavyweights, a technical ending occurred. However, the Indian used his bishop to control affairs of the board while drumming up tactical openings with his knight. What resulted was a dangerous passed f-pawn with black two knights clumsily attempting to hold the position. The game culminated with a nice deflective shot forcing resignation.

Amon Simutowe battled with Ivan Sokolov producing the round's longest game. An exciting slugfest, the Zambian IM forged ahead and attempted to seize the initiative from the Dutch player. The game reached a fever pitch and exploded after 42.Bxd5?! Simutowe smashed out 42…Rc1+!? winning the queen after 43.Rxc1 Qxb8.  Later, the Zambian suggested 42…Bxd5!

However, Simutowe (pictured left) would play the fatal 47…Ba6?? allowing 48.d7! when the Zambian would have to donate a piece to prevent a pawn from queening. With three well-coordinated pieces swarming the board, even the black Queen was no match. Simutowe hopes to  rebound with a win after a hard-fought game.

The American phenom desperately played 33.Nxf4!? and after 33…exf4 34.Qxf4+, Volkov erred with 34...Kc8? (best was 34...Ka8! 35.Qf8+ Bc8 36.Re8 Rh1+!) and Nakamura secured the draw with 35.Qf8+ Kc7 36.Qf4+ Kc6 37.Qf6+.

Round One - Game #2

While the favorites overwhelmingly advanced to the second round, the battles were hard fought. South Africa's Kenny Solomon battled hard to even his score with Grischuk, but ultimately had to settle for a draw. This was still a magnificent accomplishment by the 24-year old Solomon! A few of the top-seeds had to put their game into high gear to avoid an early exit. Both Bologan and Azmaiparashvili avoided upsets when they rallied for three consecutive wins after falling behind 1-0. Bologan clearly outplayed Mark Paragua after being shocked in the first round. After "Azmai" was crushed in the first game, he was losing in second game before capitalizing on Mahjoob's fateful blunder. Some were not so fortunate.

After India's Saskiran (2659) fell behind 1-0 against Kritz (2504), he hoped to get back on the board and enter a tiebreak. Opting for 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Bg5!? Saskiran attempted to create imbalances throughout, but only succeeded in getting a wretched pawn structure. Kritz played solidly and used incredible technique to exploit the weaknesses and pocketed a second win. Surely a devastating loss for the young Indian GM. In another one of the "upsets" in round #1, Alexander Motylev (2649) was eliminated after blundering a piece to Africa's #1 player Hichem Hamdouchi (2544).

It was noted on the FIDE website that the average age of the contestants was 30 years, 2 months… the youngest ever. While many of the highly-touted teenage wunderkind's (e.g., Karjakin, Ramirez and Carlsen) were eliminated, Nakamura was not ready to return home and could be a serious threat to any player in the field. The 16-year old blitz wizard convincingly beat Volkov in the tiebreak games for a 3-1 victory. Despite the elimination of Saskiran, Ganguly and Barua, India would send one player through to the second round in the 17-year old Harikrishna.  Both Nakamura and Harikrishna should vault into the 2600 barrier soon.

Tiebreaks

There were several tiebreaks that went into the last stages. The first two tiebreaks were 25m+10s rapid games followed by 5m+10s blitz games.  The final tiebreak would be black getting a 6:5 time disadvantage and draw-odds. Francisco Vallejo Pons was able to triumph in the blitz tiebreak session after splitting the rapid games with Chile's Rodrigo Vasquez.  There were  three other tiebreaks that went the full seven games. The games were certainly not perfect and were accented by a number of hanging pieces, but nevertheless, Ni Hua of China, Sergei Tiviakov of the Netherlands and Ruben Felgaer of Argentina went through to the next  round of 32 players. Games continue tomorrow.

Felgaer-Jobava had an wild position. In the first blitz encounter featuring a nice queen sacrifice by Jobava. Felgaer recovered and won the next two blitz games and advanced. Fortunately, blitz games can also be very instructive. The position on the left is from Sargissian-Tiviakov. This game looks to be possibly drawn, but a deeper look would reveal that white has a huge advantage. The Dutchman found himself in zugzwang after 52…Bf5 53.Kb6 Bc8 54.Ba4! (cutting the king off) f6 55.Bb5 f5 56.f4! gxf4 57.gxf4 1-0

Despite this instructive loss, Tiviakov won the blitz tiebreak.

Posted by The Chess Drum: 20 June 2004