Russian Bear slays Chinese Dragon!!

In a highly-contested match with exciting encounters, Russia staved off China's "Long March" to 1st place by winning two decisive games on boards 1 and 3. GM Garry Kasparov played perhaps the most gut-wrenching game,  a see-saw theoretical battle out of the Taimanov Sicilian. Immediately Ye Jiangchuan tried to send Kasparov to an early resignation with a queenside blitz.

When Kasparov defended accurately, the attention turned to the center of the board when Ye Jiangchuan entered dazzling complications with 31… d5!? 32.Bxe5 dxe4 33.Qc3 Rxe5!? offering  the exchange for a dangerous passed pawn. Kasparov wasn't interested in that line of play and decided to return the exchange.

What ensued was a complicated ending with passed pawns on both sides of the board. Ye allowed Kasparov to gobble a couple of pawns to get his pawns rolling, but Kasparov merely ignored the passed pawn and later sacked his rook for four passed pawns. The powerful rook was no match to stop all the pawns and Ye had to resign a few moves later.

The Kasparov-Ye game attracted a large crowd  and was certainly worthy of the attention as was Khalifman-Zhang on board #3. In this game, Khalifman won two bishops for a rook and two pawns, but his pieces were aimed a the Black king with such power that Zhang was unable to stopped the onslaught and ended up allowing mate as both players approached time control.

In Kasparov (RUS) - Ye (CHN), Black had played 50...f1(Q) 51.Rxf1 Rxf1, but the White pawns were too much to handle.

The Plot Thickens!

Hungary summarily dispatched of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2½1½;  England beat India 3-1, but not without a drama-filled match that saw GM Harikrishna sack a knight and then an exchange for a menacing attack on GM Nigel Short's King. Instead of being greedy, Short merely sacked his queen for a rook and had three pieces for the Queen… his pieces later swarmed the board and the Indian GM resigned a few moves before mate was delivered. With four rounds remaining, Russia leads the field by a mere point.

For the past year, Zambia's IM Amon Simutowe has been seeking his 3rd and final GM norm. Called by Garry Kasparov, "the most talented player that Africa has ever produced," he earned his last norm at the 2000 Olympiad scoring 8-2 on board #1. In this tournament, he has had a string of draws, but a win in the 10th round may be the beginning of a sprint to the GM norm and thus the title. Zambia rebounded from a crushing loss to blank the team from Mauritius 4-0. IM Robert Gwaze of Zimbabwe rested yet another round as his team took another 4-0 beating at the hands of Andorra. Gwaze stands a good chance for a board prize, but of course, he would want to finish the tournament strongly.

Many of the African and Caribbean teams did not fare well this round… many taking heavy losses of 3-1 and 4-0.  Nigeria drew with a strong team from Turkey as Adebayo Adegboyega scored another nice win, mating FM Umut Atakisi. Uganda was very fortunate on board#1 as Kantinti lost heavy material (down a rook)  in the opening and relied on an exposed king to conjure up threats. With the Black Queen roaming the board freely, White begin to get careless, and amazingly tossed a piece and then an exchange. The player from Bahrain ended his misery when he was finally mated. Truly an amazing comeback!

Caribbean nations had a bad round as both Jamaica and Trinidad lost 4-0; Barbados drew with Hong Kong 2-2; U.S. Virgin Islands beat Papua New Guinea 2½-1½;  African Saharan faired better… Egypt drew 2-2 with Iran; Libya beat the British Virgin Islands 3-1; Algeria defeated the IBCA (blind federation) by a score of 2½-1½.