Wei Yi Wins In Danzhou, Climbs To World #14
Wei Yi held on to his lead, and emerged as the winner of the Danzhou Super GM Tournament with 6.5/9. The 18-year-old Chinese prodigy finished a point ahead of Le Quang Liem and Ding Liren.
Wei Yi, the tournament winner in Danzhou. | Photo: Qipai.
This report covers "Danzhou" after round five, when Wei Yi was leading the tournament with 4.5 points—half a point ahead of Ding Liren and a point ahead of Le Quang Liem. He had played some nice games by then, which you can find in the first report.
In round six Wei Yi duly continued winning, as Black, vs Vladimir Malakhov. As the only Russian player in the field, Malakhov ended last, with only two points.
Where we saw some interesting pawn sacrifices in his earlier games, Wei Yi brought a stunning exchange sacrifice in this game. Having made some standard moves in an Isolated Queen's Pawn position as Black (...Bc7, ...Qd6 to force White's weakening g2-g3 move, then moving the bishop to the a7-g1 diagonal), allowing 13.Ba3 and just giving the rook on f8 was an amazing concept.
Wei Yi keeps on bending the "rules" of material. | Photo: Qipai.
Unfortunately Wei finished with three fairly uneventful draws but hey, he had already shown enough quality chess for one tournament, hadn't he?
Le Quang Liem scored a solid plus two, with seven draws and two wins. In round seven he defeated Vassily Ivanchuk, whose 4.5/9 was just about what his current rating suggested him to score.
In fact, in this game Ivanchuk outplayed his 22 years younger opponent, but just before the time control he allowed too much counterplay.
Le Quang Liem played a pretty good tournament as well. | Photo: Qipai.
Ding Liren was the other player to finish on plus two. Malakhov was one of his victims too, whom he beat with a lot of patience. See how slowly Ding outplays his opponent, and then finishes it off nicely.
Ding Liren did fine, winning 1.6 Elo points in Danzhou. | Photo: Qipai.
2017 Danzhou Super GM | Final Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Wei Yi | 2738 | 2883 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6.5/9 | |||
| 2 | Le Quang Liem | 2726 | 2797 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 5.5/9 | 23.00 | ||
| 3 | Ding Liren | 2781 | 2791 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5.5/9 | 21.50 | ||
| 4 | Naiditsch,Arkadij | 2712 | 2759 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | 5.0/9 | 21.75 | ||
| 5 | Wang Hao | 2698 | 2760 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 5.0/9 | 21.25 | ||
| 6 | Yu Yangyi | 2753 | 2754 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 5.0/9 | 19.00 | ||
| 7 | Ivanchuk,Vassily | 2729 | 2719 | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 4.5/9 | |||
| 8 | Ponomariov,Ruslan | 2699 | 2644 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 3.5/9 | |||
| 9 | Lu Shanglei | 2638 | 2563 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 2.5/9 | |||
| 10 | Malakhov,Vladimir | 2722 | 2502 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 2.0/9 |
Live Ratings Top 20
Wei won 17.4 rating points and climbed from #20 to #14 in the live ratings.
Games from TWIC.
Previous report:
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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