Erwin l'Ami Full Point Clear, 2 Rounds To Go In Reykjavik

He loves to play in Reykjavik and this time it's going really well for GM Erwin l'Ami. With two rounds to go the amiable Dutch grandmaster is a full point clear of the pack. 

Every morning around 9 a.m., IM Alina l'Ami enters the top floor of the Arnarhvoll Hotel to have breakfast. She brings a book (or a borrowed iPad, now that she's finished her Joseph Conrad softcover) and sits by the window, which happens to have an amazing view).

The Romanian-born lady, known for her wonderful pictorial reports on Chessbase, has been married for a few years now with Dutch GM Erwin l'Ami — who likes to sleep a bit longer.

He tends to join his wife later, sometimes dangerously close to the moment when the staff starts to remove the food and drinks. The couple are regular guests at the annual Reykjavik Open.

Alina is playing closely to her level, but husband Erwin is doing really well this year. At the moment he is winning 24 Elo points with a 2931 performance.

As mentioned in the previous report, he tied for first with GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and GM Alexander Fier after six rounds. The next day l'Ami grabbed sole lead, and a day later he even extended that lead to a full point!

l'Ami's win over Mamedyarov on Monday went surprisingly quickly. After the game he was shocked for a while, not fully understanding what had happened. The Azerbaijani number one had clearly made a mistake and was in big trouble, but didn't he resign a bit early?

Maybe, but on the other hand l'Ami couldn't find a move for Black in the final position!

Co-leader GM Alexander Fier lost to GM Pavel Eljanov, and so l'Ami was half a point ahead after this round. His next opponent was GM Julio Granda Zuniga, who had also won very quickly in round seven. In that game, he played a line in the Caro-Kann known from the famous last Deep Blue-Kasparov game.

Our Friday, Chess.com columnist GM Daniel Naroditsky won a nice game against Chinese GM Gao Rui:

In Monday's top board game, l'Ami was under pressure from the start against Granda. The Peruvian GM doesn't prepare much during tournaments but stated this week that he “made an exception for Reykjavik.” No doubt he had seen the Stopa-l'Ami game from earlier in the tournament, where 6.Qf3 was played.

The game completely changed when Granda lost material in time trouble. The way to draw in that position wasn't easy to find though.

Naroditsky comfortably held Eljanov to a draw on board two, and Mamedyarov dropped another half-point as well, to Canadian GM Eric Hansen.

GM Alexander Fier bounced back with a good win over GM David Navara, who apparently wasn't helped much by taking a bye in round seven.

Former world championship candidate GM Artur Jussupow is also doing rather well. He moved to 6.0/8 after winning a nice game against IM Jon Viktor Gunnarsson, who will nonetheless score a GM norm if he wins in round nine.

2015 Reykjavik Open | Round 8 Standings (Top 20)

(Full standings here)