Drawish days in Poikovsky
The Karpov tournament in the Siberian town of Poikovsky has started with many draws: both in the second and third round, all games ended peacefully. Wang Hao, Jakovenko and Rublevsky lead because of their first-round victories.The annual Karpov tournament, a ten-player round-robin, is held from July 7 to 18 in Poikovsky (a Siberian town about 150 km west of Khanty-Mansyisk). It's the strongest edition of this event so far, with World Cup finalist Alexei Shirov, winner of the first Grand Prix Vugar Gashimov, Moldavia's top player Viktor Bologan, Andrey Volokitin from the Ukraine, the Chinese GM Wang Hao, Alexander Onischuk from the United States, Emil Sutovsky from Israel and the Russians Rublevsky and Inarkiev, and last year's winner Jakovenko.The games, played with classical time control, can be followed live at the live page of the Russian Chess Federation.There are also reports (in Russian) by Ilya Odessa, with lots of photos:
In the third report, Odessa writes (translated in my own words): And then, of course, the big question mark, which I had already before I went to Poikovsky: because we're all raised with the classic Soviet literature, such as Ostrovsky and Botvinnik, we know that in order to succeed, we must foster a hatred for the opponent. To get angry at him - only then can fight and win. I wondered how this would be in Poikovsky? They're all friends here, everyone spends free time together, eat together, how, can they foster hatred? Unclear.And indeed, the drawing percentage after 3 rounds is 80%! But, it must be added that many of these draws have been very interesting fights, as could be expected in a field with such players. Here's a selection of great games.[TABLE=328]Links:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097
