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Ganguly & Ivanchuk Tied For First in Gibraltar After Round 7

Ganguly & Ivanchuk Tied For First in Gibraltar After Round 7

PeterDoggers
| 6 | Chess Event Coverage

Vassily Ivanchuk and Surya Ganguly will face each other in today's eighth round of the Gibraltar Chess Festival's  Masters tournament. The two grandmasters are the only playes on 6.0/7 and half a point ahead of a group of 12 GMs, including last year's winner Nikita Vitiugov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Michael Adams, Gata Kamsky Wei Yi, and also IM David Pardo Simon.

Photos © Sophie Triay & John Saunders

We left the tournament after the fifth round, when there was an eight-way tie for first place. The top board in Sunday's 6th round saw a relatively quiet draw between two of the 2700 participants, Pentala Harikrishna and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Boards 3 (Rapport-Vitiugov) and 4 (Rodshtein-Navara) also split the point, which gave Vassily Ivanchuk the opportunity to grab the lead in the tournament. The 44-year-old Ukrainian won a nice game against Li Chao of China:


On Monday night Li Chao showed two of his games at a Masterclass, and one of these games was this loss, in fact! Below you can watch it; at the end Natalija Pogonina takes the chair and explains here game with Nigel Short (who said “checkmate” after the last move, even though the game ended in a draw!).

21-year-old GM Eric Hansen of Canada beat 46-year-old GM Simen Agdestein of Norway from a McCutcheon French. Here's the game and below it you can find the video of the live streaming commentary. At 03:37 Hansen joins the show and explains his game.

In Monday's seventh round the point was split on the first three boards. Vassily Ivanchuk played solidly and drew with the Petroff Defense against Mickey Adams:

Surya Ganguly caught Ivanchuk in first place thanks to the following win:



Wei Yi is aleady a very tought defender at his tender age of 14. Pentala Harikrishna came close, but couldn't beat the lad:



That other big talent, Daniil Dubov of Russia, didn't do so well. He went down against IM David Pardo Simon:

In the fight for first place in the women's section (which has the impressive prize of £15,000!), right now WGM Tan Zhongyi of China tops the standings with 5.0/7. In the same points group is her compatriot (and last year's winner) Zhao Xue of China and also IM Lela Javakhishvili and GM Bela Khotenashvili, both of Georgia.

Tan Zhongyi drew with Ivan Cheparinov in round 7

Gibraltar Masters 2014 | Round 7 Standings (top 50)

Rk. SNo Title Name FED Rtg Pts. TB1 Rp
1 3 GM Ivanchuk Vassily UKR 2739 6 2878 2866
2 23 GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar IND 2619 6 2739 2731
3 2 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime FRA 2745 5,5 2805 2792
4 4 GM Vitiugov Nikita RUS 2737 5,5 2801 2791
5 13 GM Rodshtein Maxim ISR 2682 5,5 2792 2787
6 9 GM Harikrishna P. IND 2706 5,5 2790 2785
7 1 GM Adams Michael ENG 2754 5,5 2772 2763
8 14 GM Li Chao B CHN 2680 5,5 2756 2751
9 11 GM Rapport Richard HUN 2691 5,5 2751 2745
10 7 GM Kamsky Gata USA 2709 5,5 2741 2738
11 20 GM Edouard Romain FRA 2658 5,5 2740 2734
12 16 GM Dreev Aleksey RUS 2673 5,5 2718 2713
13 39 GM Hansen Eric CAN 2559 5,5 2696 2696
14 26 GM Wei Yi CHN 2607 5,5 2670 2670
15 75 IM Pardo Simon David ESP 2450 5,5 2608 2603
16 8 GM Vallejo Pons Francisco ESP 2707 5 2703 2698
17 10 GM Navara David CZE 2702 5 2675 2668
18 30 GM Mareco Sandro ARG 2582 5 2674 2674
19 63 WGM Tan Zhongyi CHN 2483 5 2673 2672
20 33 GM Fier Alexandr BRA 2572 5 2672 2672
21 6 GM Tomashevsky Evgeny RUS 2715 5 2646 2642
22 29 GM Adhiban B. IND 2590 5 2631 2631
23 17 GM Cheparinov Ivan BUL 2672 5 2619 2612
24 78 GM Akesson Ralf SWE 2447 5 2598 2591
25 45 GM Libiszewski Fabien FRA 2533 5 2594 2594
26 28 GM Salgado Lopez Ivan ESP 2597 5 2589 2589
27 37 GM Salem A.R. Saleh UAE 2564 5 2585 2585
28 44 GM Maze Sebastien FRA 2536 5 2574 2574
29 84 IM Javakhishvili Lela GEO 2430 5 2573 2562
30 68 GM Al-Sayed Mohammed QAT 2476 5 2569 2565
31 40 GM Anton Guijarro David ESP 2557 5 2550 2550
32 35 GM Mekhitarian Krikor Sevag BRA 2566 5 2505 2452
33 108 IM Lejlic Samir SWE 2345 5 2495 2480
34 34 GM Zhao Xue CHN 2567 5 2484 2476
35 46 GM Khotenashvili Bela GEO 2527 5 2465 2465
36 48 GM El Debs Felipe De Cresce BRA 2520 5 2412 2405
37 15 GM Movsesian Sergei ARM 2677 4,5 2629 2624
38 38 GM Lenderman Aleksandr USA 2562 4,5 2628 2628
39 43 GM Spraggett Kevin CAN 2544 4,5 2628 2628
40 54 GM Xu Jun CHN 2510 4,5 2618 2618
41 60 GM Debashis Das IND 2494 4,5 2618 2618
42 5 GM Eljanov Pavel UKR 2733 4,5 2596 2585
43 101 GM Bellon Lopez Juan Manuel ESP 2382 4,5 2593 2577
44 94 IM Tari Aryan NOR 2408 4,5 2591 2575
45 32 IM Dvirnyy Danyyil ITA 2574 4,5 2556 2556
46 41 GM Gopal G.N. IND 2550 4,5 2553 2553
47 55 IM Muzychuk Mariya UKR 2503 4,5 2552 2552
48 22 GM Agdestein Simen NOR 2627 4,5 2551 2550
49 59 WGM Pogonina Natalija RUS 2495 4,5 2539 2539
50 76 WGM Guo Qi CHN 2450 4,5 2535 2526

Don't miss tonight's Masterclass by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, which you can watch live, at 21:00 CET (15:00 EST), from the tournament websitePhotos © Sophie Triay & John Saunders | Thanks to Alice Mascarenhas for providing much information.
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