Gibraltar subplot

http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=23738

Judit Polgar committed to Gibraltar 2012 before the close of Gibraltar 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbMK9idPxQ0

Whether this allowed other women to know where to schedule themselves, there is a chance of a meeting with Hou, Koneru, Muzychuk ...  http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/who_is_playing_masters.htm

Would it be too fantastic to speculate some of these women turned down Wijk aan Zee for the small chance of going mano-a-mano with Judit Polgar.

http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=23738

http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=23778

http://www.livestream.com/gibchess2012

The young guns are still in the hunt.  http://chess-results.com/tnr63931.aspx?art=2&rd=3&lan=1

Pairings/Results

Round 3 on 2012/01/26 at 15:00

Maybe round four will produce a showdown.

Humpy will get her chance with Black vs Judit tomorrow

High noon in Dodge City!

Pairings/Results

Round 4 on 2012/01/27 at 15:00

http://chess-results.com/tnr63931.aspx?art=2&rd=4&lan=1&turdet=NO

Edit: It is a draw - Young Guns 0.5 Polgar 0.5

Short will win this, Ivanchuk being absent :)

There we have it. http://chess-results.com/tnr63931.aspx?art=2&rd=7&lan=1

Pairings/Results

Round 7 on 2012/01/30 at 15:00

Edit: Young Guns 1.5 Polgar 0.5

Whether the women came for a chance to play Judit Polgar it is working out that way.  http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/press_05.htm

Dropping Hou and Koneru from the possible future matchups.

 http://chess-results.com/tnr63931.aspx?art=2&rd=8&lan=1

Pairings/Results

Round 8 on 2012/01/31 at 15:00

The young guns lead 1.5 to 0.5 and next up is Mariya Muzychuk. Anna Muzychuk is sticking close and may yet have her chance. It is more likely Polgar will propel herself up into Nana Dzagnidze / Zhu Chen territory.  

Poor Judit, these girls are out for blood 

Poor Judit?  Poor Young Guns!  Don't forget, Judit's capable of playing for blood too!  She just defeated Muzychuk; so her score is now an even 1.5-1.5, her only loss coming with the black pieces against the strongest of the three.

And remember the situation we have here, these girls have probably been preparing for this opportunity for years and analyzing Judit's games.  As many women as are competing in this tournament, I almost feel Judit has the most difficult job of anyone in the event ... she basically has a bulls-eye target on her with all these women eager to defeat her and have their moment.  I suspect they've been preparing for Judit "just in case," whereas under this swiss system, Judit has no idea who she'll be playing more than 24 hours beforehand.  She's obviously not going to prepare specifically to meet each of these girls.  After spending years studying Judit's games, so far they can only manage an even score.

Judit's doing very well, especially as she's not putting in the time and preparation that she was 5-10 years ago.  Chess is no longer her #1 priority, yet she's still handling everything very well.  Go Polgar!

Yay my prediction was right, Short strikes again!!

Good win with Black in the last round against 2700 rated Sasikiran, Short can still wipe the floor with anybody outside the top 15.