Ivanchuk wins Capablanca Memorial on tie-break
On Saturday Vassily Ivanchuk won the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba. The Ukrainian grandmaster defeated Le Quang Liem (Vietnam) in the final round and was just in time to catch his opponent in the standings. Both players ended on 6.5/10 but Ivanchuk had a better tie-break.Vassily Ivanchuk beats Le Quang Liem in the final round | Photo © Miguel E. Gomez Masjuan | Columna DeportivaThe 46th Capablanca Memorial took place May 10-21, 2011 in Havana, Cuba. The main event (or “Elite group”) was a strong, 6-player, double round robin with Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba), David Navara (Czech Republic), Lazaro Bruzon (Cuba), Dmitry Andreikin (Russia) and Le Quang Liem (Vietnam). The rate of play was 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes to finish the game with 30 seconds increment from move 1.In our half-time report we noted that Andreikin, Navara and Le Quang Liem were leading after 5 rounds with 3.5 points. Of these three players, it was the Vietnamese grandmaster who continued strongly. In the next round he defeated Dominguez from the white side of a King's Indian, then drew with Andreikin in a Closed Sicilian and then beat Bruzon with White in a Slav. At that point Le Quang Liem was in sole lead with 5.5/8, a point clear of Andreikin, Navara and... Ivanchuk.The Ukrainian had started with a somewhat disappointing 50% score after seven rounds, but then did everything possible to win the tournament he had won several times before. In round 8 Ivanchuk defeated Andreikin in a Sämisch King's Indian and then he took revenge for his earlier loss against Bruzon. In a sharp and theoretical Caro-Kann, the Cuban went wrong early and was punished immediately. Le Quang Liem also won again: he defeated Navara in an Anti-Grünfeld.And so the last-round encounter Ivanchuk-Le Quang Liem was a dream pairing for the last round, with the Ukrainian still trailing by a point. The Vietnamese used a solid line in the Tarrasch French, but still was outplayed slowly but surely by Ivanchuk, who thus caught his opponent in the standings and won the tournament on tie-break.Below you'll find the games of the last five rounds. The first half was covered here, where you can also find the full version of the Ivanchuk-Bruzon game.Games rounds 6-10
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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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