No decisive games yet in Hoogeveen

REPORT BY CHESSVIBES

Also in the third round of the Univé Chess Tournaments both games in the Crown Group ended in a draw. Giri drew easily with Polgar using the Petroff while Ivanchuk couldn’t convert a big advantage against Tiviakov – the Dutchman GM liquidated to a RB-R ending and knew his endgame theory.

The 17th Univé Chess Tournament, formerly known as Essent Tournament but sponsored by insurance company Univé this year, takes place October 16-24 in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. As always the Crown Group is a 4-player, double round-robin with this year Vassily Ivanchuk (2756), Judit Polgar (2687), Sergei Tiviakov (2670) and Anish Giri (2552) playing for a € 10,000 prize fund. The time control is 40 moves in 1.5 hours + 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from the start.

Round 3

Yet again we were looking at an empty tournament hall today as far as the open group was concerned, when one game in the Crown Group was still going on. Ivanchuk was trying to beat Tiviakov in the infamous RB-R ending which is theoretically drawn, but tricky in practical play. However, with the time control used in Hoogeveen, Tiviakov didn’t come close to timetrouble, and in such a situation defending the ending is a piece of cake for a strong grandmaster.

It was understandable that Ivanchuk tried it for quite a while, because earlier the Ukrainian top seed had probably thrown away a winning position. He refuted strange opening play by Tiviakov and reached a very promosing ending. “29…Be7 was a bad move,” Ivanchuk said. “29…h4 or taking on h3 must be winning.”

Anish Giri is still holding his own comfortably among the big names; today the 15-year-old easily drew with Black against Judit Polgar. In fact, if anyone could have played for a win it was him. “Maybe against a weaker played I would have gone for 11…Ne6 but against Polgar I thought I should play it safe.” So far keeping it safe is enough to share the lead at half-time.

Univé Chess Tournament 2009 | Crown Group | Round 3 Standings


Univé Chess Tournament 2009 | Crown Group | Schedule & Results

Missing a win today: Vassily Ivanchuk

Bad opening, good defence: Sergei Tiviakov

Not easy finding something against the Petroff: Judit Polgar

Nothing to lose, and doing fine so far: Anish Giri

Two fighting draws in Univé Crown Group

report fro chessvibes.

“Amazingly, I’m still on first place after two rounds. No, even better, I have the highest tpr,” Anish Giri said after his draw with Sergei Tiviakov today. The youngest participant was happy to share his thoughts about the game with us. Judit Polgar missed a win with Black against Vassily Ivanchuk and so after two rounds all players have one point. In the open group Brodsky is the only player with 4/4.

The 17th Univé Chess Tournament, formerly known as Essent Tournament but sponsored by insurance company Univé this year, takes place October 16-24 in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. As always the Crown Group is a 4-player, double round-robin with this year Vassily Ivanchuk (2756), Judit Polgar (2687), Sergei Tiviakov (2670) and Anish Giri (2552) playing for a € 10,000 prize fund. The time control is 40 moves in 1.5 hours + 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from the start.

Round 2

Despite two more draws, it’s not difficult to describe the fighting spirit in the Crown Group today. Except for one board, the whole open group had already finished when Ivanchuk, Polgar, Tiviakov and Giri were still playing!

The game between the two top seeds was quite difficult – even to name the opening is not an easy task. We’ll just call it a Nimzo/Queen’s Indian hybrid. Anyway, Black’s play was very thematical and when she had managed to push d6-d5, Polgar was doing fine. Ivanchuk subsequently played quite risky and indeed was losing at one point. 46…Qd4 wins on the spot and Polgar did see it, but not the exact pointe – see the game viewer.

Giri and Tiviakov had a very different opinion about the opening variation that came on the board – a Catalan which Tiviakov had played before. “I said I looked at two lines, one of them which was equal and one good for me. He thought the one line good for Black, and the other one winning for him!” Giri said. Future opponents of Tiviakov should look at the lines we give in the game viewer, because they were all whispered to us by the reigning Dutch champion, who doesn’t believe in the variation for Black.