Pearl Spring Tournament Opens
The latest welcome addition to the calendar of global chess super-tournaments, Pearl Spring, kicked off today in Nanjing, China.
The six player, double round-robin event has an impressive line-up of players...
| Veselin Topalov | 2791 |
| Vassily Ivanchuk | 2786 |
| Levon Aronian |
2757 |
| Sergei Movsesian |
2732 |
| Peter Svidler |
2727 |
| Bu Xiangzhi |
2714 |
...making an average ELO rating of an amazing 2752! Chess is growing fast in China, and this excellent tournament will hopefully become a regular annual fixture.
The prize fund totals 250,000 Euros, with 80k to the winner, 55k for second, 40k third, 30k fourth, 25k fifth, and 20k for sixth. The time control is a fairly speedy 40 moves in 90 minutes, then 30 moves plus a 30 second increment to finish the game.
The first round saw the local boy, Bu Xiangzhi (pictured above), take the lead by beating Sergei Movsesian. The other games finished drawn:
| Lev Aronian | Veselin Topalov | ½-½ | 39 |
Slav Defence |
| Vassily Ivanchuk | Peter Svidler | ½-½ | 37 |
Ruy Lopez Chigorin |
| Movsesian, Sergei | Bu Xiangzhi | 0-1 | 58 |
Bishop's Opening |
Sadly, the official website, like far too many chess event websites, leaves a lot to be desired, but you can check it out here. The link for live games seems to be here . Games start at 3pm local time (8 a.m. CET/ 2 a.m. EST/ 7 a.m. GMT)
Here are the games and some pictures from round 1. Pictures from http://blog.sina.com.cn/chessnews.
