Good start Mtel Masters
The organizers of the Mtel Masters in Sofia couldn't have hoped for a better start of their 2008 tournament. Both Topalov and Cheparinov won; against Aronian and Bu respectively. Ivanchuk defeated Radjabov.Contrary to his usual style, Topalov started very well this time: he beat Aronian in a great game. It started quietly but then it became clear the Bulgarian wasn't satisfied with half a point. He started a massage of White's kingside with his queen and knight, and eventually he could decide the game with the fancy combination 36...Re3!! which forced a liquidation to a winning ending.Cheparinov's endgame win against Bu was the typical Sicilian knightmare: good White knight against bad bishop e7 with the d6-e5 structure. Radjabov might have underestimated Ivanchuk's profound understanding of the game: at first the Azeri's win of an exchange wasn't really successful and then it really went wrong in a pawn ending.Pairings round 2:Bu Xiangzhi - Radjabov
Aronian - Cheparinov
Topalov - IvanchukVideos by Europe-Echecs:
The venue: the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria
The drawing of lots
Levon Aronian picks his number
At the press conference
The players play their game in a glass cage. The construction's dimensions are 8 ?ë‚Ķ 8 ?ë‚Ķ 3.5 m. The floor is entirely made of laminated glass, designed as a chessboard and four columns. The cage was designed by Stilstroy Proekt in a team with the designer Altan Ibrahimov, architect Donka Zaneva and the engineer Ivan Nenkov. One of Europe's leading acoustics experts ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Elia Spasov. He works with the jazz festival in Montreux and has consulted legendary bands like Metallica and Deep Purple. The isolation of the wall is comparable to that of 7-meter wall.
Aronian-Topalov: the top match already in round 1
Ivan Cheparinov, who found the time to visit a hairdresser between tournaments
Teimour Radjabov, also right from Baku to Sofia
Bu Xiangzhi, China's number one
Vassily Ivanchuk, this time not at the Capablanca MemorialLinks:
- Tournament website
- Games in PGN
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.”
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