Not
everyone made it
A running report by Jonathan Tisdall - for the
live version see our Chess Message Boards.
Round Two, Day Three
tiebreaks
The defending champion Khalifman showed he still
remembers how this KO stuff works, moving forward
by beating Lutz once and securing the result
with a draw.
Shirov followed this pattern, scoring his deciding
blow over Onischuk with a patented tactical barrage
in game 2.3.
Adams has socked away a comfortable pension for
his retirement years by consistent success in big-money
events, and when things sped up, his smooth routine
took over. Dao was out without much of a chance.
Ex-kid Svidler blanked still-kid Bacrot in the first
playoff pair, but only thanks to some extremely
wicked tactical tricks in an objectively
crap (sorry) position in game 2.4.
The casualties
Ivanchuk is about as famous for bad nerves as he
is for profound talent. The KO circus brings
out the worst in him, and when Ehlvest started rounding
up pawns in an ending, "Chukky" didn't hang around
to watch.
The second very big name to exit was Nigel Short,
who went out trying to defend rook vs. rook + bishop
at high speed. It went well for quite a while, but
the blunder came. 22-year-old Nataf adds an even
bigger scalp to his collection, and he looked
very mature throughout this duel.
Overtime specialists
Kiril Georgiev eventually eliminated last year's
major surprise Nisipeanu in a fairly slow and grim
match. Dreev got into trouble after dropping game
2.3 but showed his class and his playoff experience
by rebounding and smacking Malakhov three times
in a row.
A round one hero resumed his dramatic career in
overtime. Polish GM Macieja started the event by
getting hammered by Jon Speelman, then advanced
after two impressive attacking games with
white. In round two Macieja faced imported compatriot
Mikhail Krasenkov, who currently sports a 2702 rating.
The Polish match was the round's marathon, and Macieja
showed a new dimension to his play, as well
as confirming his comeback ability. In a long duel
of stodgy endings, Macieja avoided elimination by
winning game 2.6 before finally triumphing in 2.10!
Heartbreaker
Mikhail Gurevich went forward after a horrible swindle/blunder.
He followed up blundering a pawn with a piece sacrifice
of the desperate sort. Minasian walked into a teeth-loosening
tactic that sent him crashing out of the
competition.
The reworking of the European map has allowed for
an explosion of players from the former Soviet
Union, either for now independent nations, or as
emigrés. The most extreme part of the pairing chart
shows Dutchman Jeroen Piket as the only non-member
of this club.
One particularly annoying pairing for round
three will be the Bulgarian championship between
Georgiev and Topalov, two players that could wish
they had landed somewhere else in the chart.
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