"Snow Drops" lead against "Old Hands"
Three rounds so far have been played in this year's edition of the Czech Coal Match, and the team of "Snow Drops" (Humpy Koneru, Anna Muzychuk, Kateryna Lahno and Jana Jackova) are in the lead: 7 points versus 5 for the "Old Hands" (Jan Timman, Vlastimil Hort, Robert Hübner and Viktor Kortchnoi).The Czech Coal Chess Match 2009, a double-round Scheveningen match, takes place November 28 - December 5 at the Chrystal Palaca Hotel in Marianske Lazne (the former Marienbad), Czech Republic. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes and 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The tournament is organized by the Prague Chess Society.Last year the "Snow Drops" versus "Old Hands" tournament was very even but nevertheless it was won by the quartet of men (Anatoly Karpov, Vlastimil Hort, Fridrik Olafsson and Wolfgang Uhlmann). Of the four ladies (Viktorija Cmilyte, Anna Ushenina, Jana Jackova and Katerina Nemcova) it was the Czech number one, Jana Jackova, who was the most successful. She managed to take down former world champion Anatoly Karpov already in the first round.This year the "Snow Drops" team is a bit stronger, led by the world's number 2 player Humpy Koneru, and after three rounds they are leading with a small margin: 7-5. And again it was Jana Jackova who started strongly; this time with the black pieces she defeated the now 78-year-old Viktor Kortchnoi in the first round. In the next round she would lose to Hübner with White, while Koneru defeated Hort. Yesterday Muzychuk also beat Kortchnoi, and by now we've already mentioned all decisive results so far in this friendly tournament.Rounds start at 16:00 CET (except for the last round which starts at 13:00 CET), live here.
Games rounds 1-3
Game viewer by ChessTempo
The venue, like last year, is the Chrystal Palace Hotel in former Marienbad
Music at the opening ceremony...
...and the eight participants presenting themselves
Arbiter Pavel Votruba and guest and former FIDE President Fridrik Olafsson
Another famous guest: Mark Dvoretsky, together with organizer Pavel Matocha..
...and perhaps the most famous guest: 10th World Champion Boris Spassky
Round 1: Viktor Kortchnoi vs Jana Jackova...
...a win for the Czech lady
These organizers know how to set up a commentary room. There's the live boards, there's Chessbase and there's GM Marek Vokac, sometimes aided by Boris Spassky
Anna Muzychuk vs Jan Timman
Robert Hübner versus Kateryna Lahno
Timman and Lahno analyzing, Spassky kibitzing
Pavel Matocha with Bessel Kok
A unique experience for Humpy Koneru: advice from Olafsson, Dvoretsky, Timman and Spassky!
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.”
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