Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Mateusz Bartel Scores a Knockout


via GIPHY
  
   In the following game black takes too many chances and white executes a typical N-sac in the Sicilian that gives him a lasting attack. However, black fights back into the game only to miss his opportunity in a mutual time scramble and the result was a nail-biting finish. 
     The game was played in the 2015 European Individual Championship. The event was the sixteenth in the annual series of European continental championships that were first staged in 2000. The top 23 places qualified for the World Cup 2015 and 250 players competed. This event, an 11 round Swiss, was held February 24 to March 8 in the Jerusalem Ramada Hotel in Israel. 
     Round one saw nearly half of the top boards drawn and in round 2 over half the top twenty boards were drawn. After three rounds five players had 3-0 scores while 37 players had 2.5. 
     After round four only Anton Korobov had 4-0 and maintained the lead until he lost to Nepomniachtchi in round 6 which dropped him back into a tie for fifth. Nepomniachtchi’s win tied him for first with 5.0 with Bartel, Sargissian and Motylev. 
     By round 7 there was a nine-way for first and a pack of 21 players were a half point back. In round 8 Nepomniachtchi defeated David Howell to take the sole lead with 6.5-1.5. 
     In round 9 Nepomniachtchi lost the lead when he was defeated by Navara, who was joined in the lead by Evgeniy Najer and Anton Korobov with scores of 7.0-2.0. Eleven players were half point behind them. 
     In round ten, Najer moved into the sole lead when he beat Korobov. In the last round Najer took the event with outright first place after he drew his game with Khismatullin. The top scores were: 

1) Evgeny Najer 8.5-2.5 
2-4) David Navara, Mateusz Bartel and Denis Khismatullin 8.0-3.0 
There were 22 players with 7.5-3.5. Nepomniachtchi finished with 7.0-4.0.

No comments:

Post a Comment