Russian GM Mikhail Antipov is the sole leader with 2 out of 2 at the World Champions tournament in Hotel Selfoss. The tournament is part of the Ísey Skyr Chess Festival with ten former World Champions pitted against each other.
The only players winning in round one where Antipov and Zhigalko.
Helgi Grétarsson – Rafael Leitao
Helgi played the Catalan against the solid Brazilian Leitao. Not much happened and soon a draw was agreed. Nontheless Leitao can be quite happy with two relatively effortless draws with the black pieces as he was the only player to have two blacks at the start of the tournament. At the same time, Helgi Gretarsson will be pleased with two draws against the two highest rated players!
Sarasadat Khademalsharieh – Héðinn Steingrímsson
Steingrimsson didn’t go for much in the 1st round vs Leitao while Sara lost against Zhigalko. The opening was solid enough and Steingrimsson seemed to equalize and even take over when one of black’s rooks became a bit disorientated.
22…Rf7? offering white a pleasant line which Sara didn’t miss 23.Bxe4 Bxe4 24.Qh6! o now there followed another poor rook move 24…Re7?? which invited 25.Df6! another poor move followed 25…Bc5?? and black had to resign after the clinical 26.Nf7! when mate or material loss follows.
Semyon Lomasov – Sergei Zhigalko
The fact that Semyon is somehow still “only” an international master is amazing! Clocking in halfway towards a 2600 rating so far Semyon has been perhaps the most impressively prepared player. He exerted almost no energy in his first round draw with black and today he took all his chances against his strong Belarus opponent. Semyon gave up the bishop pair to win a pawn and never seemed to look back after that giving his opponent almost no chances to complicate matters. A very impressive start by the young Russian.
Ahmed Adly – Dinara Saduakassova
The talented Egyptian GM seemed to get a nice game out of the opening before giving it all away and allowing black to equalize. A tough struggle followed but black was probably just equal when the unthinkable happened….
Not much to say really…..
This position is just assessed at 0.00 by the computer. An unreal blunder by black here as Dinara chose to play 38…Kc6?? allowing 39.Rc7# A truly nightmarish start by the talented player from Kazakhstan.
Mikhail Antipov – Hannes Stefánsson
With Zhigalko losing it was only Antipov remaining with a chance to end the round with a full house. Stefansson choose the Petroff defence, a slight surprise although he had already played it at the European team championships. Antipov exchanged Queens early but nonetheless seemed to keep a very nice grip on the position and he never let it go. In Karpovian fashion, his grip on the position transposed to a pawn up rook ending where he made no mistakes. A nice game by Antipov!
All in all the white pieces produced 4.5 out of 5 in the 2nd round so the World Champions need to come up with something better with the black pieces in the coming rounds!
Round 2 results.
Standings:
3rd round pairings
The 3rd round will get under way at 1700 local time tomorrow. The open South tournament will also sart tomorrow and both tournaments will be closely followed with live commentary on FM Ingvar Johannesson’s Twitch channel here: http://www.twitch.tv/zibbit64
