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 transit"
• Opening ceremony
• First round

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.



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Links:

• Official website
• Games in PGN