Beauty in chess (II)

Today the second and last part of Jonathan Rowson's lecture on beauty in chess, plus a small update on the tournament in Sardinia.







Tournament update In the sixth round, Rowson drew with Black against Mihail Marin. Yesterday he easily beat Italian IM Brunello and so with two rounds to go, he's a point ahead. Today Rowson defends his lead with Black against Oleg Korneev - a crucial game in the tournament! It starts at 15:00 hrs CET.

Russian grandmaster Korneev lives in Spain, where he's been winning almost every open he's played in for the last decade or so. At the same time, he doesn't avoid the latest opening theory, as Dutch IM Jan-Willem de Jong experienced yesterday

With Black, De Jong played the new, trendy gambit line of the Closed Ruy Lopez, 9...Nc6 10.Bc2 d5!?, under the assumption Korneev wasn't aware of a recent game of his, which didn't make it to TWIC/Chessbase. Korneev, who's using Chess Assistent, did know the game and came to the board well prepared. From a slightly worse position De Jong then was outplayed.



After the game, De Jong was as cheerful as always. "If you wonder why I didn't resign earlier, well, that was because he was wandering around all the time. A few times I had to make a move to get him to the board!"

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Links:

• Tournament website
• Games round 1-7 in PGN

Live games for the last two days: round 8 and round 9.