(1591) FINAL ROUND OF 2018 WCO (Oct. 05, 2018) DOUBLE GOLD FOR CHINA; AWARDING CEREMONY

FINAL ROUND OF 2018

WORLD CHESS OLYMPIAD

(October 05, 2018)

DOUBLE GOLD FOR CHINA;

AWARDING/CLOSING CEREMONY

As usual in all Olympiads, the last and final (11th) round is always played at 11 am to be followed by Closing/Awarding Ceremony in the evening of the same day.

We ate our breakfast as usual at 8:00 am and get ready for the bus going to the playing hall. The Palau women's team is an hour early with no players yet at our opponents' table -- the women's team of Bermuda.

I intentionally rested Joan Gemota, with 3 wins and 4 losses record after 7 rounds, in the 10th round vs. Honduras for her to have a legitimate chance to gain a Woman Candidate Master title if she would win her last round match with the new WFM Zuzana Kovacova (2079). When the players of Bermuda arrived, there are some conversation especially with Board 2 player Sheila Cancino (1456), who is a Filipino, so they are talking in Tagalog language.

The Board 3 and 4 of Bermuda doesn't have any rating. It's a good chance for Angie at Board 4 to defeat Yasmin Flanagan for an outright WFM title, Palau's first to be. Angelil Sisior at Board 3 also have a chance for a win vs. Rebecca Faulks.

I can hear Joan begging to Zuzana to let her win so that she can gain a WCM title, where Zuzana just smiled.

Eric and Joy came 20 minutes before the start of the game. They brought a small camera and we have some photos with both teams. The Open team is facing Timor Leste, mostly composed by Indonesian/Filipino players--1. Luis Guterres vs. Cyril; 2. Tomas Fernandes vs. Bobot Tan; 3. Tito Dos Reis vs. Angelo Salvadora and 4. Jose Fatima vs. Leif Toribiong.

Our Match Arbiter is

IA, IO Olexandr Prohorov

President of Major Lviv Chess Federation

International Arbiter FIDE (IA)

International Organizer FIDE (IO)

Trainer FIDE (FT)

Master FIDE (FM)

National Master (NM)

Official Person Chess Manager in Western Europe

Tel: +36-097-496-82-58 (Kyivstar, UKR) (Whatsup)

Tel: +36-063-147-0-741 (Lifecell, UKR) (Viber)

Tel: +48-790-430-948 (Play, POL)

email: prohorov@chessclub.lviv.ua

Skype: Prohorov Olexandr

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OlexandrProhorov

Eric Ksau Surangel Whipps took a photo of Wesley So while boarding a bus going to the Closing/Awarding Ceremony.

Sources: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
               Tia Belau Newspaper
               December 29, 2002 -- October 17, 2018

               Chess and Music (Perfect Combination)
               The Beginning of Chess in Palau
               By Roberto Hernandez
               Soon to be published as a book

               Music and Me by Roberto Hernandez
               Tia Belau Newspaper
               March 15, 2012 -- April 18, 2013
               http://palau-chess.blogspot.com
               April 25, 2013 -- October 17, 2018

              The History of Chess in Palau
              By Roberto Hernandez
              June 09, 2002 -- October 17, 2018

              www.fide.com

(1537) MAGNUS CARLSEN WINS TATA STEEL CHESS TOURNAMENT 2018

   MAGNUS CARLSEN WINS TATA STEEL
           CHESS TOURNAMENT 2018

If GM Wesley So won the strongest tournament in the world, the 2017 Tata Steel Chess Tournament, this year, the current world chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway won this prestigious tourney after an exciting last round.

At the start of the matches, five Grand Masters still stood a chance of winning, with Anish Giri and Carlsen leading the pack.

Because both of their games ended in a draw, they had to play a tiebreak, consisting of 2 blitz game (5 minutes for each player with 3 extra seconds per move), which was won by Carlsen.

This is Carlsen's 6th trophy from Wijk-aan Zee.

3rd place went to Vladimir Kramnik, thanks to the better additional criteria since he tied with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who had the same score of 8.5 points out of 13 games.

THE RESULTS:
1. Giri, Anish (9 pts. --2752 Rating) 2. Carlsen, Magnus (9 pts. --2834) 3. Kramnik, Vladimir (8.5--2787) 4. Mamedyarov (8.5--2804) 5. Anand, Viswanathan (8.0--2767) 6. So, Wesley (8.0--2792) 7. Karjakin, Sergey (7.5--2753) 8. Svidler, Peter (6.0--2768) 9. Wei, Yi (5.5--2743) 10. Jones, Gawain C B (5.0--2640) 11. Caruana, Fabiano (5.0--2811) 12. Matlakov, Maxim (5.0--2718) 13. Adhiban, B (3.5--2655) 14. Hou, Yifan (2.5--2680)

Vidit Gujrathi (India) has won the Tata Steel Challengers, thus earning a promotion to the Tata Steel 2019. Vidit justified the starting position scoring 9 points out of 13 games, and finishing the event as sole first with a whole point ahead of the runner-ups.

Last year, Gawain Jones won the Tata Steel Challengers and finished a decent 10th place despite being the lowest rated.

Stefan Kuipers the Top Nine Round event, earning a spot to the Tata Steel Challengers next year.

This year, the Tata Steel Chess, often called as "Wimbledon of Chess", celebrated its 80th anniversary and took place in a coastal village of Wijk-aan Zee, north Holland, with locations of the playing venues: Beeld en Geluid, in Hilversum and the Academy building of the University of Groningen. 

Tata Steel Chess 2018 gathered thousands of chess lovers, top world Grandmasters, visitors, 1800 participants of the various tournaments of Tata Steel events with the unique opportunity for the amateurs and the youngest to play chess in the same venue as their chess idols. 

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2019 will take place from 11-27 January 2019.

Photo credits: Tata Steel Chess. For info about the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, go to www.tatasteelchess.com.

(1487) 2018 FIDE World Chess Candidates Tournament on March 10 (TBN-March 05, 2018)

GETTING USA VISA (10 YEARS) WITHIN A WEEK

                  On Feb. 15, 2018, I have an interview at the US Embassy in applying for USA visa. Roger T. Bluestone, right, the Local Guard Force Commander, escorted me to the interviewer, Jennifer Nehez, the mom of my chess/piano student. Roger, his wife and Mr. Ben Asuncion, at left, had dinner at PRR on Sat. Feb. 10, 2018. She requested “To Love Again”, “As Time Goes By” and “Love Story”. After this photo session, they proceed at Breeze Bar of PRR and enjoyed 2 hours of live music. Roger’s wife, to our surprise, can sing Spanish songs—“Amor, Amor, Amor”, Historia de un Amor, Besame Mucho, etc. Many PRR guests filled the place, thinking that there is live entertainment! Eventually, I’ve got a USA visa for 10 years on Feb. 16, 2018 and used it right away (Feb. 22-26, 2018) to attend the Pacific Area Fellowship of Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ (4^th Watch) in Saipan.                       (Photo by Roberto Hernandez)

2018 FIDE World Chess Candidates

      Tournament on March 10

FIDE announces that the deadline for player’s participation in the Candidates Tournament is 26 January 2018. The event will be held in Berlin, Germany from 8 March (arrivals/opening ceremony) to 29 March 2018 (departures) and the qualifiers are:

1.       Sergey Karjakin (Russia, World Championship 2016 Finalist)

2.       Levon Aronian (Armenia, World Cup 2017 Winner)

3.       Ding Liren (China, World Cup 2017 Finalist)

4.       Shakhiyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, Grand-Prix 2017 Winner)

5.       Alexander Grischuk (Russia, Grand-Prix 2017 Runner-Up)

6.       Fabiano Caruana (USA, Rating Lists 2017)

7.       Wesley So (USA, Rating Lists 2017)

8.       Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, Organizer’s Nominee)

First reserve from the FIDE Grand-Prix standings is Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan). The winner of the Candidates Tournament will challenge Magnus Carlsen for the FIDE World Championship title in the last quarter of 2018.

I am being cordially invited to the Official Opening Gala of this event—the semi-final of the World Chess Championship cycle on March 09 at 19:00 in Kuhlhaus Berlin, Luckenwalder Str. 3.

I am welcome to attend the Tournament, which will start on March 10 and last until March 28 at the same venue. A three-week long chess fever, which will determine the challenger to the reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, will start with a gala at Kuhlhaus Berlin, former ice factory—a place most suitable for the coolest minds in the world.

The top 8 Grandmasters mentioned above will compete for the privilege to fight at the World Chess Championship Match later this year.

The organizers are expecting government and business leaders, diplomats and cultural trendsetters to witness these intriguing games with them. They are asking me to join the evening to meet chess stars, appreciate iconic for Berlin paintings by Thierry Noir and tune into Persian sounds mixed with electronic music by Madanii, a Berlin-based trio surrounding Iranian-German singer Dena Zarrin. Cocktails designed by World Chess’s very own mixologist Kenan Assab will help you up your game. The invitation is for 2 persons and is non-transferrable. Please kindly RSVP to rsvp@worldchess.com     Best regards, World Chess Team https://worldchess.com/berlin/ 

 Solution to last week’s puzzle No. 3801: 1. Qxg8+!! Kxg8 2. Rh8+!! Kxh8 3. Bf7#

This week’s puzzle No. 4373: Black to move and mates in 3 (Solution next issue)

Sources: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez

               Tia Belau Newspaper

               Pages 9-10

               Volume 27

               Issue 18

               March 05, 2018

              Chess and Music (Perfect Combination)

              The Beginning of Chess in Palau

              By Roberto Hernandez

              Soon to be published as a book

             Music and Me by Roberto Hernandez

             Tia Belau Newspaper

             March 15, 2012 -- April 18, 2013

             http://palau-chess.blogspot.com

             April 25, 2013 -- March 05, 2018

            The History of Chess in Palau

            By Roberto Hernandez

            June 09, 2002 -- March 05, 2018

(1475) FABIANO CARUANA TAKES LONDON CHESS CLASSIC (TBN-Jan. 29, 2018)

FABIANO CARUANA IN LONDON AND AZERBAIJAN

               Malcolm Fein, left, presents Fabiano Caruana with the London Classic trophy while in the other photo Caruana, currently No. 2 in the world with 1811 rating is with Palau’s Team Captain and player Roberto Hernandez at the 2016 World Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan. World Champion Magnus Carlsen is No. 1 with 1834. The other 8 are Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (1804), Levon Aronian (1787), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (1793), Wesley So (1792), Vladimir Kramnik (1787), Hikaru Nakamura (1781), Ding Liren (1769) and Peter Svidler (1768).

                                                   (Photo in Azerbaijan by Roberto Hernandez)


          FABIANO CARUANA TAKES
   
           LONDON CHESS CLASSIC

The ninth and final round of the 9th London Chess Classic, played on Monday 11 December 2017 at the Olympia Conference Centre, concluded with two of the players lifting trophies. Fabiano Caruana needed a tie-breaker against Ian Nepomniachtchi to win the first prize in the tournament itself, while Magnus Carlsen clinched the first prize in the overall Grand Chess Tour. A pulsating final day’s play saw three decisive games as the grueling event took its toll in errors but the fans were also treated to a display of top-notch technique.

                As things stood overnight, Ian Nepomniachtchi was half a point clear of Fabiano Caruana in the running for the first prize in the tournament. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, a further half point back, also had an interest in the trophy but would have to win with Black against the leader to finish level with him and hope that Caruana would do no better than draw for a three-way tie. The Grand Prix leader board was more complicated with Carlsen leading and Vachier-Lagrave and various permutations of their results and those of others determining the destination of the year’s big-money prizes. 

               The first issue to be resolved (or at least partially resolved) came with a quick-ish draw between Nepo and MVL. It lasted just 17 moves and resulted in a repetition but still had an element of interest when Nepo played 9.Ndb5 followed by a pawn sacrifice. It was probably all planned in advance by White as it occurred in a pet line of MVL’s. The basis of the plan was to open up the d-file against the black queen, and also exploit a pin on a knight, and it was hard to see how Black was expected to continue without running the risk of having a much worse position. 

               No better exploitation of his positional advantages was available to White than the repetition, which had probably been his game plan (“I’m not really happy with what I did today... and I think no-one really liked it, me neither” said Nepo with a rueful smile at the post-game interview). So the game was over in just 35 minutes. That cut MVL out of the running for first prize in the tournament and meant that Nepo would have to wait to see how Caruana fared with White against Adams. 

               In fact, Nepo had to wait another 5+ hours to see whether he would have to play a tie-breaker as Caruana-Adams went the distance. It was, as soccer commentators like to say, “a game of two halves”. An imbalanced middle game seemed to favor Adams around move 30-33, with Caruana admitting later that he had been prepared to repeat position in lieu of anything better to do. But some inaccuracies from the Englishman (Adams himself thought 33...Ra5 could have been a key mistake) saw his position disintegrate markedly and by the time control it had resolved itself into a queen and rook endgame with Caruana having an extra pawn. Mickey may have been able to do better in the endgame but in practice the defense was tough and Fabi relentless. Beating Mickey Adams is never easy and this was a fine way for the US player to conclude his tournament. England’s number one said of his own performance, “I gave away too many early Christmas presents.” 

The other major issue was the outcome of the Grand Chess Tour and here much depended on the outcome of Aronian versus Carlsen. They say that a common military mistake made by generals is to fight a war based on their experiences of a previous campaign. There was an element of this about Aronian’s play against Carlsen. After a cagy start, in which neither of them was willing to commit to mainstream theory, the Armenian super-GM gained a small positional edge but pushed his luck a little too far, perhaps too conscious of Carlsen’s dismal showing in round eight effort and too trusting in Carlsen’s comment after that game about having ‘zero interest’ in their current encounter. Unluckily for Aronian, the Monday Carlsen, cold or no cold, was a very different proposition from that of the day before. He may still have been suffering from the head cold but, as opening morphed into middle game, it became clear that he was back at full functionality on the chessboard. Aronian gave up a piece for pawns and an attack but he was thwarted at every turn by some relentlessly accurate, active defense from the world champion. 

               Round nine coincided with Vishy Anand’s 48th birthday but it proved an unlucky one at the chessboard. Perhaps a birthday becomes something of a burden to an active professional chess player in their 40s as it provides an unwelcome excuse for writers, pundits and wiseacres in general to hint that maybe it’s time for the old boy to retire. Losing a game on the same day can make the chorus of unsolicited retirement advice all the louder. So I’ll try to buck the trend by expressing the hope that Vishy carries on playing indefinitely and wishing that we see him at the Classic again next year. However, though not Vishy’s finest hour, the game itself is worth seeing as it showcased Wesley So at his best. Good to see him back on song. 

                Nakamura completed a sweep of nine draws in the tournament with his game against Sergey Karjakin and commentator Maurice Ashley suggested he should expect some Twitter banter from Anish Giri who has been known to tease rivals who emulate his own pacific tendencies. Hikaru took this with a smile and expressed positive thoughts about his play in London. He thought his game with Sergey was the only one where he was in some trouble during the course of the tournament though it didn’t prove terminal. Sergey had welcomed Hikaru’s 15...g5 after which he had gained an edge but he had not ultimately seen a good way to exploit it. “I was worse but I don’t think I was ever losing,” commented Hikaru. 

               (CONCLUSION NEXT ISSUE)

Solution to last week’s puzzle No. 4285: 

                      1. …Rxe3+! 2. fxe3 Qg3+!! 3. hxg3 Bxg3#

This week’s puzzle No. 4407:

                       Black to move and mates in 3 (Solution next issue)

Sources: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez

               Tia Belau Newspaper

               Pages 9-10

               Volume 27

               Issue 8

               January 29, 2018

               Chess and Music (Perfect Combination)

               The Beginning of Chess in Palau

               By Roberto Hernandez

               Soon to be published as a book

               Music and Me by Roberto Hernandez

               Tia Belau Newspaper

               March 15, 2012 -- April 18, 2013

               http://palau-chess.blogspot.com

               April 25, 2013 -- January 29, 2018

               The History of Chess in Palau

               By Roberto Hernandez

               June 09, 2002 -- January 29, 2018