Ganguly & Ivanchuk Tied For First in Gibraltar After Round 7
Vassily Ivanchuk and Surya Ganguly will face each other in today's eighth round of the Gibraltar Chess Festival's Masters tournament. The two grandmasters are the only playes on 6.0/7 and half a point ahead of a group of 12 GMs, including last year's winner Nikita Vitiugov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Michael Adams, Gata Kamsky Wei Yi, and also IM David Pardo Simon.
Photos © Sophie Triay & John Saunders
We left the tournament after the fifth round, when there was an eight-way tie for first place. The top board in Sunday's 6th round saw a relatively quiet draw between two of the 2700 participants, Pentala Harikrishna and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Boards 3 (Rapport-Vitiugov) and 4 (Rodshtein-Navara) also split the point, which gave Vassily Ivanchuk the opportunity to grab the lead in the tournament. The 44-year-old Ukrainian won a nice game against Li Chao of China:
On Monday night Li Chao showed two of his games at a Masterclass, and one of these games was this loss, in fact! Below you can watch it; at the end Natalija Pogonina takes the chair and explains here game with Nigel Short (who said “checkmate” after the last move, even though the game ended in a draw!).
21-year-old GM Eric Hansen of Canada beat 46-year-old GM Simen Agdestein of Norway from a McCutcheon French. Here's the game and below it you can find the video of the live streaming commentary. At 03:37 Hansen joins the show and explains his game.
In Monday's seventh round the point was split on the first three boards. Vassily Ivanchuk played solidly and drew with the Petroff Defense against Mickey Adams:
Surya Ganguly caught Ivanchuk in first place thanks to the following win:
Wei Yi is aleady a very tought defender at his tender age of 14. Pentala Harikrishna came close, but couldn't beat the lad:
That other big talent, Daniil Dubov of Russia, didn't do so well. He went down against IM David Pardo Simon:
In the fight for first place in the women's section (which has the impressive prize of £15,000!), right now WGM Tan Zhongyi of China tops the standings with 5.0/7. In the same points group is her compatriot (and last year's winner) Zhao Xue of China and also IM Lela Javakhishvili and GM Bela Khotenashvili, both of Georgia.
Tan Zhongyi drew with Ivan Cheparinov in round 7
Gibraltar Masters 2014 | Round 7 Standings (top 50)
| Rk. | SNo | Title | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | Rp |
| 1 | 3 | GM | Ivanchuk Vassily | UKR | 2739 | 6 | 2878 | 2866 |
| 2 | 23 | GM | Ganguly Surya Shekhar | IND | 2619 | 6 | 2739 | 2731 |
| 3 | 2 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | FRA | 2745 | 5,5 | 2805 | 2792 |
| 4 | 4 | GM | Vitiugov Nikita | RUS | 2737 | 5,5 | 2801 | 2791 |
| 5 | 13 | GM | Rodshtein Maxim | ISR | 2682 | 5,5 | 2792 | 2787 |
| 6 | 9 | GM | Harikrishna P. | IND | 2706 | 5,5 | 2790 | 2785 |
| 7 | 1 | GM | Adams Michael | ENG | 2754 | 5,5 | 2772 | 2763 |
| 8 | 14 | GM | Li Chao B | CHN | 2680 | 5,5 | 2756 | 2751 |
| 9 | 11 | GM | Rapport Richard | HUN | 2691 | 5,5 | 2751 | 2745 |
| 10 | 7 | GM | Kamsky Gata | USA | 2709 | 5,5 | 2741 | 2738 |
| 11 | 20 | GM | Edouard Romain | FRA | 2658 | 5,5 | 2740 | 2734 |
| 12 | 16 | GM | Dreev Aleksey | RUS | 2673 | 5,5 | 2718 | 2713 |
| 13 | 39 | GM | Hansen Eric | CAN | 2559 | 5,5 | 2696 | 2696 |
| 14 | 26 | GM | Wei Yi | CHN | 2607 | 5,5 | 2670 | 2670 |
| 15 | 75 | IM | Pardo Simon David | ESP | 2450 | 5,5 | 2608 | 2603 |
| 16 | 8 | GM | Vallejo Pons Francisco | ESP | 2707 | 5 | 2703 | 2698 |
| 17 | 10 | GM | Navara David | CZE | 2702 | 5 | 2675 | 2668 |
| 18 | 30 | GM | Mareco Sandro | ARG | 2582 | 5 | 2674 | 2674 |
| 19 | 63 | WGM | Tan Zhongyi | CHN | 2483 | 5 | 2673 | 2672 |
| 20 | 33 | GM | Fier Alexandr | BRA | 2572 | 5 | 2672 | 2672 |
| 21 | 6 | GM | Tomashevsky Evgeny | RUS | 2715 | 5 | 2646 | 2642 |
| 22 | 29 | GM | Adhiban B. | IND | 2590 | 5 | 2631 | 2631 |
| 23 | 17 | GM | Cheparinov Ivan | BUL | 2672 | 5 | 2619 | 2612 |
| 24 | 78 | GM | Akesson Ralf | SWE | 2447 | 5 | 2598 | 2591 |
| 25 | 45 | GM | Libiszewski Fabien | FRA | 2533 | 5 | 2594 | 2594 |
| 26 | 28 | GM | Salgado Lopez Ivan | ESP | 2597 | 5 | 2589 | 2589 |
| 27 | 37 | GM | Salem A.R. Saleh | UAE | 2564 | 5 | 2585 | 2585 |
| 28 | 44 | GM | Maze Sebastien | FRA | 2536 | 5 | 2574 | 2574 |
| 29 | 84 | IM | Javakhishvili Lela | GEO | 2430 | 5 | 2573 | 2562 |
| 30 | 68 | GM | Al-Sayed Mohammed | QAT | 2476 | 5 | 2569 | 2565 |
| 31 | 40 | GM | Anton Guijarro David | ESP | 2557 | 5 | 2550 | 2550 |
| 32 | 35 | GM | Mekhitarian Krikor Sevag | BRA | 2566 | 5 | 2505 | 2452 |
| 33 | 108 | IM | Lejlic Samir | SWE | 2345 | 5 | 2495 | 2480 |
| 34 | 34 | GM | Zhao Xue | CHN | 2567 | 5 | 2484 | 2476 |
| 35 | 46 | GM | Khotenashvili Bela | GEO | 2527 | 5 | 2465 | 2465 |
| 36 | 48 | GM | El Debs Felipe De Cresce | BRA | 2520 | 5 | 2412 | 2405 |
| 37 | 15 | GM | Movsesian Sergei | ARM | 2677 | 4,5 | 2629 | 2624 |
| 38 | 38 | GM | Lenderman Aleksandr | USA | 2562 | 4,5 | 2628 | 2628 |
| 39 | 43 | GM | Spraggett Kevin | CAN | 2544 | 4,5 | 2628 | 2628 |
| 40 | 54 | GM | Xu Jun | CHN | 2510 | 4,5 | 2618 | 2618 |
| 41 | 60 | GM | Debashis Das | IND | 2494 | 4,5 | 2618 | 2618 |
| 42 | 5 | GM | Eljanov Pavel | UKR | 2733 | 4,5 | 2596 | 2585 |
| 43 | 101 | GM | Bellon Lopez Juan Manuel | ESP | 2382 | 4,5 | 2593 | 2577 |
| 44 | 94 | IM | Tari Aryan | NOR | 2408 | 4,5 | 2591 | 2575 |
| 45 | 32 | IM | Dvirnyy Danyyil | ITA | 2574 | 4,5 | 2556 | 2556 |
| 46 | 41 | GM | Gopal G.N. | IND | 2550 | 4,5 | 2553 | 2553 |
| 47 | 55 | IM | Muzychuk Mariya | UKR | 2503 | 4,5 | 2552 | 2552 |
| 48 | 22 | GM | Agdestein Simen | NOR | 2627 | 4,5 | 2551 | 2550 |
| 49 | 59 | WGM | Pogonina Natalija | RUS | 2495 | 4,5 | 2539 | 2539 |
| 50 | 76 | WGM | Guo Qi | CHN | 2450 | 4,5 | 2535 | 2526 |
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.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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