Kings R8: Nisipeanu beats Wang Yue
Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu defeated Wang Yue with the black pieces in round 8 of the Kings Tournament in Bazna, Romania. Gelfand-Carlsen and Radjabov-Ponomariov ended in a draw. Games commented by GM Dorian Rogozenco & videos.The fourth Kings Tournament takes place in Medias, Romania from June 14 till 25. Against it's a 6-player, double round-robin, with two rest days. This year Carlsen, Gelfand, Nisipeanu, Ponomariov, Radjabov and Wang Yue play. The rate of play is 2 hours for the first 40 moves, one hour for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes plus an increment of 30 seconds per move.The rounds start each day at 15.30 which is 14.30 CET and 08.30 EDT. They can run well into the evening, as we won't see ultra-short draws in this tournament - no draw agreement by the players are allowed before move 30, except for cases of a triple-repetition, a perpetual or a theoretically drawn position.The event is organized by Romgaz and the Chess Club Society "Elisabeta Polihroniade”. This year the tournament is officially part of the Grand Slam, substituting the cancelled MTel Masters. Venue is the brand new Romgaz Center in Medias (near Bazna), but the organizers are considering to move back to Hotel Complex Balnear Expro in Bazna, where everyone is staying. ChessVibes will be at the tournament from start to finish, providing videos for the official website:Videos
Source files: (for iPhone users and others)Round 8
The eighth round saw the clash between the numbers one and two in the standings. For Gelfand, who played with the white pieces, it was an excellent opportunity to do something about Carlsen's supreme reign in the tournament. And the Israel grandmaster got his chances, when his opponent allowed some complicated tactics on move 16.
In a more or less forced sequence of moves, both sides 'won' an exchange and the resulting position was analysed in the hotel lobby by Ponomariov and Radjabov, who had drawn a quiet game in thirty moves. "It looks promising for White, but Carlsen is a tricky guy, very tricky," Ponomariov said. 
And indeed the Norwegian appeared to be safe throughout the game, and even had the better chances in the end. Black's activity is more important than White's a-pawn, but there is no clear way to profit from the pin.Nisipeanu was rewarded for his persistance in an ending against Wang Yue. At move 36 his second Viorel Iordechascu couldn't find more ideas for Black and expected a draw soon, but his boss managed to find a way to get his king in. Then, on move 63, he said he wasn't sure if 'Dieter' would find 63...Kc3 and especially 65...Rf1, which he called a 'computer move' to cut the king. But Nisipeanu found it (depicted below).
Round 8 games commented by GM Dorian Rogozenco
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Links
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.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097
