Ivanchuk on 2/2

Vassily Ivanchuk is the only player on 2 /2 in Sofia after he beat Veselin Topalov today. Bu Xiangzhi-Radjabov and Aronian-Cheparinov were drawn.

Topalov chose 1.e4 against Ivanchuk and faced a French Defence. Black's opening was a succes because after 18...axb5 he seems fully equalized. A few moves later, with the regrouping of his knight Ivanchuk forced an ending in which the White pieces lacked harmony. In timetrouble Topalov managed to create some nasty counterplay but the he missed 33.Ra1! which would have been quite dangerous for Black. Instead, with nerves of steel Ivanchuk intercepted all of Topalov's creativity.

In a Slav Defence, Cheparinov responded very well to Aronian's interesting novelty 13.Rc1 and went for an ending that was only slightly better for White. The Armenian top GM tried everything he could to get more out of it, but the young Bulgarian just defended very accurately.

Bu Xiangzhi went for a double fianchetto which was answered by a very solid Gr?ɬºnfeld/Slav set-up by Radjabov. A quiet positional game turned into a classical (and quite sharp) "wing attack against wing attack", but unfortunately this quickly led to an endgame in which all the pieces and pawns were vacuum cleaned in no time.



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Pairings round 3:

Cheparinov - Topalov Radjabov - Aronian Ivanchuk - Bu Xiangzhi

Videos by Europe-Echecs:





The winners of Grand Prix caricature of the Union of the Bulgarian artists Alla and Chavdar Georgievi painted the stars of the 4th M-Tel Masters super chess tournament. The already traditional cartoon exhibition of Veselin Topalov, Ivan Cheparinov, Vasilly Ivanchuk, Bu Xiangzhi, Levon Aronian, Teimour Radjabov will be exposed in the press center at the Central Military Club, where the tournament is taking place. At the end of the tournament on May 18, every player is going to get its own picture as a gift.

Here's more information on Alla and Chavdar Georgievi.