Ivanchuk-Navara: 3-1 at half time
After four of the eight games, Vassily Ivanchuk is leading his rapid match in Prague against David Navara 3-1. Thus far the Ukrainian follows the perfect match strategy of drawing with Black and winning with White. However, in game 4 Navara was very close to winning.From May 27 to 31, Ivanchuk and Navara play an eight-game rapid match at the Best Western Kampa hotel in Prague. The match is the main attraction of the chess festival CEZ CHESS TROPHY 2009, organized by the Prague Chess Society. The two play on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, two games each day, at 17:00 and at 19:00 CET.All games are be broadcast online, and commented for the audience in the hotel by the Czech-American grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek. The match will be complemented by a chess simul and by lectures by grandmasters Lubomir Kavalek, Vlastimil Hort and Jan Plachetka. The chess festival CEZ CHESS TROPHY 2009 is held in a partnership with the capital city Prague.
Prime minister of the Czech Republic Jan Fischer made the ceremonial first move in game 1.
After half of the match has been played, Ivanchuk leads with 3-1, beating Navara twice with the white pieces and drawing twice with Black. In the first game Ivanchuk played a Dragon with Black to which Navara castled kingside. After many exchanges a dead drawn position was reached at move 31. In game 2, Ivanchuk played the 5.Qb3 line against Navara's Gr?ºnfeld and in a tactical squirmish right after the opening White ended up with an exchange up; Ivanchuk easily converted his advantage.Changing his 1.e4 for 1.Nf3, Navara couldn't get an opening advantage against Ivanchuk's QGA and again, many exchanges led to an equal position. Game 4 was Navara's best effort, where he reached a very promising position out of a Semi-Slav (Moscow Variation) but eventually lost in timetrouble.Games 1-4
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Ivanchuk and Navara at the opening dinner...
...where Navara picked White for game 1. On the right organizer Pavel Matocha.
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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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