The January Trophy Stall chess tournament promises a turn-out of the country’s strongest chess players. The tournament is the first for junior and senior chess players of all ages since last year’s qualifier for the National Champion-ships.
National Champion Wendell Meusa, and former National champion Kriskal Persaud are both expected to participate along with Ronuel Greenidge, Taffin Khan, Loris Nathoo and Shiv Nandalall. These players are among the ablest in the country of the senior players, and it would be interesting to note who will be ahead of the others.
National Junior Champion Cecil Cox will perhaps face the biggest obstacle of all in his quest to win this tournament. The juniors have been training and practising vigorously to improve themselves over the chess board with a little help from selected seniors. I believe we will witness from as early as this tournament a higher standard of play from the juniors than we did last year. Soon they may be invited to play among the seniors.
Again I say the stronger endgame player will prevail. Its either you know what to do in the endgame or you don’t. You cannot learn over the board in competitive play. Inevitably, home preparation would make the difference. The player with a fair amount of opening theory will secure an advantage going in to the middlegame, and that, even if a tiny advantage, could be increased to determine the outcome of the game.
The federation is using the specified FIDE time control, minus the increments on the clock for this tournament. The reason for this slight deviation from the official international arrangement of timing is that the federation still does not have enough digital clocks to allow this particular function. The federation uses both the digital and analog clocks. And analog clocks were not designed to facilitate increments.
Some time this year, FIDE will despatch some officially rated players to Guyana to compete with local players in a tournament. Based on players’ individual performances, they will be given an official rating by the World Chess Federation and this will determine at what levels they will be allowed to compete overseas.
So, getting familiar with the FIDE specified time becomes very important.
The Trophy Stall tournament is being sponsored by its owner-manager Ramesh Sunich, and could find permanence in the federation’s annual calendar of events. The tournament began yesterday and continues today with two rounds at the Kei-Shar’s Sports Club.
Shirov v Smeets
The annual Wijk aan Zee chess tournament which features a number of the world’s top grandmasters, is underway in the Netherlands. Top seed Magnus Carlsen has been playing well so far, along with world champion Anand, US sensation Nakamura and veteran Ivanchuk. However, the tournament belongs to Alexei Shirov who has scored four sensational wins from the four games which have been contested. Carlsen is in fourth place with two wins and two draws.
Cuba’s Leinier Dominguez has not dropped a game, and like Anand, has four draws from four games. Here is Shirov’s fourth win against the Dutchman Jan Smeets.
Shirov – Smeets
Corus Chess 2010 Wijk aan Zee (4), 19.1.2010
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.0-0 Be7 8.c4 Nb4 9.Be2 0-0 10.Nc3 Bf5 11.a3 Nxc3 12.bxc3 Nc6 13.Re1 Re8 14.cxd5 Qxd5 15.Bf4 Rac8 16.h3 h6 17.Nd2 Na5 18.Nf1 Qb3 19.Qd2 Nc4 20.Bxc4 Qxc4 21.Ne3 Qb5 22.c4 Qd7 23.c5 Bg6 24.Rac1 c6 25.Nc4 f6 26.Bxh6?! gxh6 27.Qxh6 Bh7 28.Re3 Bf8 29.Rg3+ Kh8 30.Qxf6+ Bg7 31.Qg5 Bxd4 32.Rd1 Rf8 33.Kh2
33…Rcd8?? 34.Ne5 Qc7 35.Rxd4! Rxd4 36.Ng6+ Kg7 [36…Bxg6 37.Qh6+ Qh7 38.Qxf8+ Qg8 39.Qxg8+ Kxg8 40.Rxg6+ wins] 37.Nxf8+ Black Resigns! 1-0.