Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2012

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2012 Games and Results

Mark Crowther (Thu Feb 2 18:06:00 2012)

The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival took place Tuesday 24th Jan - Thursday 2nd Feb 2012. Peter Svidler, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Michael Adams, Zoltan Almasi, Le Quang Liem, Alexei Shirov and Judit Polgar were amongst the stars. In the final round Hou Yifan drew against Shakhriyar Mamedyarow which allowed Nigel Short to catch her with a fine win against Krishnan Sasikiran. Short went on to beat Hou in a 2 game 10 mins + 5 seconds per move playoff match 1.5-0.5 but could have won the second game had he needed to do so. Read more ....

• Nigel Short's playoff win against Hou Yifan in Gibraltar
• Women's World Champion Hou Yifan edged out by Short after playoff in Gibraltar
• Hou shares lead with Adams after defeating Le
• Tricky Mickey in Gibraltar

Levon Aronian secures 74th Tata Steel victory

74th Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2012 13

Mark Crowther (Sun Jan 29 19:09:00 2012)

Levon Aronian decided that discretion was the better part of valour and took a very quick draw with white against Teimour Radjabov which secured victory in the 74th Tata Steel tournament for the "best result so far" in his career. Magnus Carlsen finished level with Radjabov after drawing an interesting game with Loek van Wely. They were joined by Fabiano Caruana who beat Boris Gelfand in a very drawish queen ending. Gata Kamsky was the only other winner piling further misery on Veselin Topalov who again misplayed a decent position. Tournament director Jeroen van den Berg confirmed that the 75th event will go ahead at the same time of year in 2013. The field of experience and ambitious youngsters produced exciting chess but Aronian with 7 wins, 4 draws and 2 losses was the dominant figure and clearly a deserved winner. Top seed Magnus Carlsen admitted that his play after round 7 "was a total mess". This will be the only elite chess tournament in the first half of the year unless there are surprise new events. It will be interesting to see what the players do with the time. A-Group Leading Final standings: 1st Aronian 9pts, 2nd-4th Carlsen, Radjabov, Caruana 8pts 5th-6th Ivanchuk, Nakamura 7.5pts. Pentala Harikrishna won the B-Group and Maxim Turov the C-Group both qualify for a group higher next year. Read more ....

• Aronian triumph at Wijk aan Zee
• Drama in penultimate round of the Tata Steel tournament
• Carlsen back in hunt after 11 rounds of Tata Steel
• Aronian beats Gelfand in wild game to secure at least share of Tata Steel title

Queenstown Chess Classic 2012

Queenstown Chess Classic 2012 Games and Results

Mark Crowther (Mon Jan 23 19:25:00 2012)

The Queenstown Chess Classic took place 15th-23rd January 2012. Darryl K Johansen took first place on tie-break after defeating Gawain Jones in the final round. He along with Li Chao B and Zhao Jun finished on 7.5/9. Read more ....