Capablanca Chess Memorial in Havana May 7-18: Four-Time Winner Ivanchuk Confirms Participation

Chess Blog for Daily Chess News and Trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2014

Hello everyone,

Ukraine's Vassily Ivanchuk, keeping up with his traditional chess ritual, will participate in the Capablanca Memorial Chess Tournament, to be held in Havana, Cuba, from May 7 to 18. Ivanchuk will be one among six elite-group players invited to the tournament.

Ivanchuk's presence consolidates Capablanca Memorial tournament as one of the best ones with high rivalry among the elite group, according to Jose Luis Ramirez, spokesman of the Cuban Chess Federation.

The Ukrainian player, winner of the 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010 editions of the championship in Havana will visit the island for the sixth time. Ivanchuk has a huge chess fan following in the region. 

Ivanchuk will play in the elite group against Grandmasters Hungary's Zoltan Almasi (2,707), who is the current champion, Spain's Francisco Paco Vallejo (2,707), the Philippines' Wesly So (2,738) and Cubans Lazaro Bruzon (2,676) and Leinier Dominguez (2,757). The players from the elite group have an average elo ranking of 2,720.6 pints.

The Capablanca Chess Memorial begain in 1962 as an initiative of legendary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. The first winner was Argentine Miguel Najdorf, followed by Russians Boris Spassky, Vassily Smyslov and Lev Polugaesky.

Since 1974, the Capablanca Chess Memorial has included two groups. In 1980, there were four group and the format remained thus until 2006 when it established the current division of one double-round elite group including six players, making the tournament the most important one held in Cuba.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal chess blog
at www.chessqueen.com
Don't miss Chess Queen™
YouTube Channel

Thessaloniki Chess Grand Prix 2013: Leinier Dominguez Wins Title with Last-Round Win

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hi everyone, 

Leinier Dominguez outplayed Veselin Topalov in the longest game of the day to overtake Gata Kamsky and claim a clear first place in the Thessaloniki Grand Prix. The Cuban finished the tournament with 8/11 points. In the other key encounter Fabiano Caruana made a good favour for Dominguez by defeating the overnight leader Kamsky to finally catch him on the shared second place. 

Hikaru Nakamura won against Peter Svidler to finish the tournament in good mood, while Vassily Ivanchuk scored his first victory in the game against Etienne Bacrot. Results, standings and photo gallery are updated.

Kasimdzhanov - GrischukWhite employed the English Attack in the Naidorf Sicilian and the play followed an earlier encounter between Leko and Grischuk in London Grand Prix. At one point Kasimdzhanov deviated from Leko's game with the more ambitious 18.Rh8. However, two moves later he refrained from the consistent 20.fxe4 and played the safer 20.Qxe4. Kasimdzhanov said that this has been a very difficult tournament and he was not very ambitious today. Grischuk added that he had to go down the forced line after 10...b4 because otherwise he would simply be worse. Kasimdzhanov concluded that the tournament was very nice, his result is okay, but he wasn't happy about the two games with white pieces that he lost (to Dominguez and Kamsky).

Read more »

Thessaloniki Chess Grand Prix 2013 Round 5: Dominguez Takes Lead

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hi everyone, 

Leinier Dominguez continued the winning row in Thessaloniki Grand Prix as he defeated the former World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov with black pieces in the 5th round. After the third consecutive victory Dominguez is leading the race with 3,5 points. For some time it looked like Caruana and Morozevich will join in the shared lead, but they couldn't convert their games into full points. Results, pairings, standings and photo gallery are updated.

Ivanchuk - Kamsky
The game finished rather quickly, after only 30 minutes of play. Ivanchuk had a poor start, but Kamsky was cautious because the Ukrainian is very unpredictable and no one knows when he could shine. Thus black chose to be solid and defended with the Caro-Kan. Ivanchuk surprised him with a quiet line, that can be poisonous if black neglects the danger, but the American champion knew the way to equality.

Kamsky said he felt relief when he realised that Ivanchuk "might not kill him". He added that he was happy after 14.Bxf6 because he knew the game will be drawn. When asked if he knows why is Ivanchuk in bad form, Kamsky didn't want to speculate but he recollected an earlier tournament in Linares: "When I saw Ivanchuk beating Kasparov, I thought the guy will be the next World Champion."

Svidler - Topalov
The play started with the Queen's Gambit Declined and Svidler opted for the popular line with 5. Bf4. The position quickly sharpened up as black grabbed a pawn but white pushed his own all the way to c7. Topalov wanted to cover the c-file with Nc5, but he discarded the idea because he "would simply be a piece down".

Disappointed about the miscalculation, black decided to trade some pieces and retain two pawns for the exchange. After 23...Nf8 it looked like there could be some trouble on the back-rank (Topalov suggested 23...Bf8 as better option).

Svidler thought he would win after 26.Ne5, but he "didn't see that the Knight is coming out that fast". This changed his mood and he went to look how to make a draw. He said he was very worried about 30...Rc5+ and Topalov agreed that this might have been good attempt to keep the action going - "I don't even know why I didn't play it".

The position simplified as many pawns went off (It was very important to keep the h-pawn alive - Svidler) and the draw was signed after the repetition.

Topalov said at the press conference that he was mainly preparing for 1.e4. Svidler replied - "He did seem to know what I was aiming for, but that's just the general feeling you get when you play Topalov".

Read more »

Cuban Chess Championship 2013 to Feature Stars Dominguez, Bruzon

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

The Cuban chess stars Leinier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzon, both members of the 2700 Elo club and part of the top 50 in the world, will be the main attraction during the 2013 Cuban National Chess Championship. The preliminary tournament will take place on January 16-27 in Santa Clara, in the center of the island.

According to Radio Havana Cuba, the national referee Jose Luis Ramirez informed that Dominguez (2723 Elo points) and Bruzón (2701) have already confirmed their presence in the final of the competition, that will be played on February, according to a nice report by Chessdom.

Leinier Dominguez (photo by Anastasya Karlovich)

In the preliminary stage, 12 chess players from 5 provinces will play a single round-robin tournament. The top five will advance to the final, in which, besides Dominguez (the best Latin American player, placed 23rd in the world ranking), and Bruzón (placed 46th), the Grand Masters Yunieski Quesada (2595), Yusnel Bacallao (2543) and Isan Ortiz (2595) will also participate.

Read more »

World Chess Cup R4.2: Judit makes monumental effort to beat super fight from Dominguez

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

Despite the high merit in all the games, it is going to be Leinier Dominguez Perez-Judit Polgar that is surely going to pass into history for Round 4.2 of the World Cup of Chess currently on in Khanty-Mansiysk! Or, what else would you say about Judit Polgar's nerves of steel, deep calculation against the rock solid defense of Leinier Dominguez Perez - all the way to 112 moves for more than five hours!

Meanwhile, we forgot to notice that the young Yaroslav Zherebukh is knocked out losing both games to David Navara, Dmitry Jakovenko is knocked out by Teimour Radjabov and Gata Kamsky has been knocked out by Peter Svidler. Now, we have some great tiebreaks coming up tomorrow just when we thought there might not be any for the fourth round. Such is the power of chess. 

Here are all the great games of Round 2.2 with the game links to the official website. Enjoy. Don't forget to tune in for the high-definition live broadcast of all the action from the World Cup of Chess tomorrow also.

Round 4.2 
1 1−1 Dominguez P, Leinier (CUB) 0−1 Polgar, Judit (HUN) View 2 1−1 Ivanchuk, Vassily (UKR)½-½ Bu, Xiangzhi (CHN) View 

3 2−0 Navara, David (CZE)1−0 Zherebukh, Yaroslav (UKR) View 4 1−1 Ponomariov, R (UKR)½-½ Bruzon B, Lazaro (CUB) View 

5 1−1 Nielsen, Peter H (DEN)1−0 Gashimov, Vugar (AZE) View 

6 1−1 Grischuk, Alexander (RUS)1−0 Potkin, Vladimir (RUS) View 7 0.5−1.5 Jakovenko, D (RUS)½-½ Radjabov, T (AZE) View 

8 0−2 Kamsky, Gata (USA)0−1 Svidler, Peter (RUS) View

Tweet

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com

GMs Bruzon, Dominguez qualify for World Cup of Chess

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Khanty Mansisyk - Preparing for World Cup of Chess 2011

Hi everyone,

Back to news from Havana. Cuban Grandmasters Lazaro Bruzon and Leinier Dominguez have won the two tickets for the 2011 World Cup of Chess by winning the Zonal 2.3 regional qualifying tournament that concluded on Sunday in Santiago de los Caballeros, the Dominican Republic

Dominguez won the event with 11 points of 12 possible with his victory on Sunday over Jamaican Jomo Pitterson, while Bruzon placed second with 10.5 points after he tied with Colombian Sergio Barrientos.

Apart from qualifying to the World Cup, with these results, Dominguez added 9.5 points to his current ELO rating of 2716 while Bruzon continued nearing the 2700 mark as he currently has 2686 and he added 7.1 points. The third spot of the competition was for Mexican Manuel Leon Hoyos, who ended with 9.5 points.

The World Cup of Chess is scheduled for Khanty Mansiysk, Russia, from August 26 to September 21 later this year.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com