Karpov & Korchnoi meet again

During the 4th Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup, a blitz tournament in Odessa (Ukraine), the old rivals Karpov and Korchnoi will meet again. After five rounds Drozdovskij and Ponomariov are leading.

The Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup is held this weekend at the Law Faculty of University of Odessa (Ukraine). It's a memorial for Efim Geller (who was born in Odessa) and has a prize fund of US $30,000. It's an eight-player double round-robin with a rate of play of ten minutes per game plus five seconds per move.

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The organizers have managed to bring together the names of Anatoli Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi, the two old rivals who played three world championship matches: two official ones, Baguio City (Philippines) 1978 - see video on the right - and Merano (Italy) 1981, and an unofficial one: the Candidates Final in 1974 in Moscow, which turned out to be the last hurdle for Karpov to become world champion.

These days the animosity between the two isn't what it used to be, but still I have to admit that the picture above, with the two Ks so close next to each other, is not from a real shot, but photoshopped. :-) (You fell for it, didn't you?)

Yesterday the first five rounds of the tournament have been played: R1 Korchnoi-Beim 0-1, Tregubov-Gelfand 0-1, Ponomariov-Karpov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?, Golubev-Drozdovsky ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?. R2 Beim-Drozdovskij 0-1, Karpov-Tregubov 0-1, Gelfand-Golubev 1-0, Korchnoi-Ponomariov 0-1. R3 Ponomariov-Beim 1-0, Drozdovskij-Gelfand 1-0, Tregubov-Korchnoi ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?, Golubev-Karpov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?. R4 Korchnoi-Golubev 1-0, Beim-Gelfand ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?, Ponomariov-Tregubov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?, Karpov-Drozdovskij ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?. R5 Tregubov-Beim 1-0, Drozdovskij-Korchnoi 1-0, Golubev-Ponomariov 0-1, Gelfand-Karpov 1-0.

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So by now you probably wonder when you have to tune in to watch the clashes between Karpov and Korchnoi live. Well, they play each other in the 7th and 14th round. In the 7th round, Karpov is White - this game is played today at 14:00 hrs local time (12:00 hrs GTM, 13:00 hrs CET). The 14th round is played tomorrow at 16:00 hrs local time (14:00 hrs GTM, 15:00 hrs CET).

The participants before the start of the tournament

Some of them having a chat with Sergey Kivalov, President of the Law Faculty

Viktor Korchnoi at a post-game press conference

Anatoli Karpov at a post-game press conference

Valery Beim, of Karpov's generation

Boris Gelfand, somewhat younger

Pavel Tregubov, a bit younger than Boris

Ponomariov-Karpov

Karpov-Drozdovskij

Korchnoi-Beim

The cup they're playing for

Links:

• Official website
• Games in PGN