Artemiev Wins Clear 1st At Gibraltar Chess Festival
After a stunning and unexpected final round in which all of the top three boards saw the underdogs prevail, 20-year-old Russian and newlywed GM Vladislav Artemiev won his game and the title of 2019 Gibraltar Chess Festival champion.
His complicated win as Black against GM Yu Yangyi kept his leader's margin intact over surprising GM Murali Karthikeyan (8.0/10), who defeated GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final round for clear second. Karthikeyan might have felt that such a vigorous run in the event's second half would get him at least a playoff, but no. Artemiev's title was the first since 2015 that didn't need any extra chess.
In a day full of the unexpected, GM Murali Karthikeyan defeated top-seeded GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Photo: John Saunders.
Karthikeyan and Artemiev both will leave the Rock with a little more notoriety. The Indian GM, still not yet back over 2600 (although closing in fast), ended with a perfect 5.0/5 in the second half of the tournament. That streak included wins over 2700s in rounds eight, nine and 10.
After the retirement of GM Vladimir Kramnik mid-tournament, Artemiev might be installing himself as the new "Big Vlad." While he's too new for a catchy moniker to have firmly stuck, his 27-point rating gain vaulted him 16 spots in the rankings. So you can just call him a "top-20 world player." He's also one of the most modest.
Artemiev won £25,000 for his win–not a bad haul and quite useful since he just got married three months ago. Maybe he can now take a taxi to the tournament next year.
For this year, he stayed in Spain, crossing the border on foot each day and walking around 45 minutes to reach the host Caleta Hotel. This might be the largest event ever won by a player who was staying in another country while competing!
Board three also featured something quite unexpected. That GM Levon Aronian went down as White to GM David Howell was a small surprise, but the way in which it happened was so unexpected that one colleague couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Here's the clip of the tournament, where commentator GM Simon Williams said, "Lev has just gone completely caveman." GM Hikaru Nakamura didn't need any colorful words to describe his own thinking:
Gibraltar also dubs itself the "Home of Women's Chess" and offers a £15,000 first prize to back up the claim. Three women were tied headed into the final day but GM Tan Zhongyi's win was good enough to overtake the sisters Muzychuk for 7.0/10 and the top prize. She is the seventh different winner in the last seven years and the fourth Chinese woman in that same span to win.
Lastly, the final round saw the "Shankland ending" appear again, although this time there was no premature resignation. Still, the world champion had some fun with it.
Here's Artemiev going for the win with the Caro-Kann (it was a great day for the opening, as Howell also employed it in his big win). At one point Yu could have repeated, but he needed to win to get into a playoff. Artemiev took full advantage.
"He has aggressive style usually," Artemiev said about his thinking going into his first-ever game against Yu. Artemiev said playing the Caro was meant to be a solid choice. He also said that due to university studies, he hasn't been able to focus on chess much. "Before this tournament I didn't have good preparation."
Here's an extended interview with the champion:
And here's his lengthy post-game analysis, which was a masterclass by itself! Skip to 5:37:56 to see the champion's take on his game.
Watch Gibraltar Chess Festival, final round with GM Simon Williams and IM Jovanka Houska from GibChess on www.twitch.tv
Their game finished after Karthikeyan had already finished off Vachier-Lagrave. Karthikeyan is a two-time champion of India and from the same famous chess school as many of the young teenage Indian GMs. GM R. B. Ramesh is turning out quite a factory of young talent!
But with all the talk of really young grandmasters, Karthikeyan reminded that he, too, is a teenager and 19 years old is not quite over the hill. [Correction: Karthikeyan informed Chess.com that he turned 20 just before the tournament began.]
After the game Kathikeyan had every right to think he would at least get into a playoff. After a perfect second half of the tournament and three straight super-GM scalps, he was unlucky not to, but that's how well Artemiev played. Here's the second place finisher's thoughts on the final game and the tournament:
One board lower down, Aronian self-destructed against Howell. In a brief chat after the game, Howell said Aronian missed a queen retreat to the back row, thus nullifying any effectiveness of the Armenian's piece offering.
Neither player had a chance at first going into the final day, but this one cost the defending champion a chunk of money.
Howell explained that the exotic idea with an early ...f6 came from his preparation for the British Knockout Championship December. And who did he study back then? The games of Aronian!
He said he knew the ...f6 idea was risky, but he said he needed a win to end with serious prize money, which he will now apply to his pricey London rent.
"I knew I was playing with fire but neither one of us wanted a draw," Howell said.
GM David Navara, himself an early leader of the event, found out the hard way that studying the games of the other concurrent event could be useful. After Shankland's resignation in a drawn position at Tata Steel, this time Navara allowed the same fortress idea, prompting GM Magnus Carlsen to poke some fun as the game was about to finish:
Very interesting ending from Gibraltar! Seems to me white will use the majority to create a passed pawn. Black will then sac the bishop and resign pic.twitter.com/bnWHQeOzHS
— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) January 31, 2019
In the battle for first prize among the ladies, pre-round co-leader GM Mariya Muzychuk could barely hang on for a draw after GM Rinat Jumabayev threw everything at her.
With this draw and with sister Anna going down, that left the door wide open for former world champion GM Tan Zhongyi. She took full advantage by winning with Black.
The complete final standings are here.
2019 Gibraltar Chess Festival Masters Section | Final Standings
| Rk. | SNo | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | rtg+/- | |
| 1 | 11 | GM | Artemiev Vladislav | 2709 | 8,5 | 27,4 | |
| 2 | 49 | GM | Karthikeyan Murali | 2570 | 8,0 | 23,6 | |
| 3 | 8 | GM | Vitiugov Nikita | 2720 | 7,5 | 6,4 | |
| 3 | 19 | GM | Howell David W L | 2685 | 7,5 | 4,0 | |
| 3 | 27 | GM | Anton Guijarro David | 2642 | 7,5 | 7,6 | |
| 6 | 6 | GM | Navara David | 2738 | 7,0 | 7,0 | |
| 6 | 20 | GM | Grandelius Nils | 2682 | 7,0 | 12,6 | |
| 6 | 55 | GM | Lalith Babu M R | 2547 | 7,0 | 29,8 | |
| 6 | 9 | GM | Le Quang Liem | 2714 | 7,0 | 4,6 | |
| 6 | 17 | GM | Saric Ivan | 2690 | 7,0 | 6,8 | |
| 6 | 3 | GM | So Wesley | 2765 | 7,0 | -2,6 | |
| 6 | 4 | GM | Yu Yangyi | 2764 | 7,0 | -3,0 | |
| 6 | 1 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | 2780 | 7,0 | -4,5 | |
| 6 | 13 | GM | Adams Michael | 2701 | 7,0 | 1,4 | |
| 6 | 28 | GM | Alekseenko Kirill | 2637 | 7,0 | 9,8 | |
| 6 | 5 | GM | Nakamura Hikaru | 2749 | 7,0 | -3,4 | |
| 6 | 26 | GM | Edouard Romain | 2643 | 7,0 | 6,2 | |
| 6 | 12 | GM | Mamedov Rauf | 2703 | 7,0 | -1,5 | |
| 6 | 21 | GM | Eljanov Pavel | 2680 | 7,0 | 0,0 | |
| 6 | 23 | GM | Melkumyan Hrant | 2660 | 7,0 | 0,7 | |
| 6 | 14 | GM | Matlakov Maxim | 2700 | 7,0 | -4,1 | |
| 6 | 74 | GM | Tan Zhongyi | 2502 | 7,0 | 11,1 | |
| 23 | 62 | GM | Muzychuk Mariya | 2540 | 6,5 | 21,8 | |
| 23 | 2 | GM | Aronian Levon | 2767 | 6,5 | -5,5 | |
| 23 | 41 | GM | Vaibhav Suri | 2590 | 6,5 | 13,5 | |
| 23 | 36 | GM | Lagarde Maxime | 2604 | 6,5 | 6,9 | |
| 23 | 80 | IM | Gukesh D | 2497 | 6,5 | 21,2 | |
| 23 | 18 | GM | Adhiban B. | 2689 | 6,5 | -5,8 | |
| 23 | 35 | GM | Jumabayev Rinat | 2604 | 6,5 | 4,7 | |
| 23 | 15 | GM | Cheparinov Ivan | 2691 | 6,5 | -6,5 | |
| 23 | 83 | GM | Chandra Akshat | 2492 | 6,5 | 20,0 | |
| 23 | 16 | GM | Jones Gawain C B | 2691 | 6,5 | -7,1 | |
| 23 | 42 | GM | Antipov Mikhail Al. | 2589 | 6,5 | 4,8 | |
| 23 | 65 | GM | Sadzikowski Daniel | 2534 | 6,5 | 12,0 | |
| 23 | 47 | GM | Yuffa Daniil | 2578 | 6,5 | 3,5 | |
| 23 | 113 | GM | Solozhenkin Evgeniy | 2427 | 6,5 | 23,4 | |
| 23 | 33 | GM | Moussard Jules | 2605 | 6,5 | -2,3 | |
| 23 | 32 | GM | Tari Aryan | 2625 | 6,5 | -5,6 | |
| 23 | 34 | GM | Donchenko Alexander | 2604 | 6,5 | -5,1 | |
| 23 | 117 | IM | Bjerre Jonas Buhl | 2422 | 6,5 | 14,7 |
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Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
