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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Ivanchuk wins Capablanca Chess Memorial on tiebreak

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hello everyone,

Defending champion Vasilly Ivanchuk has won the Capablanca Chess Memorial, in Havana, Cuba, with a nice last-round victory over the Vietnamese Grandmaster Le Quang Liem. Both players had 6.5/10 but the Ukrainian grandmaster had a better tiebreak.

Vassily Ivanchuk beats Le Quang Liem in the final round | Photo © Miguel E. Gomez Masjuan |Columna Deportiva

The 46th Capablanca Memorial was organised from May 10-21. The main event (or “Elite group”) was a strong, 6-player, double round robin with Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba), David Navara (Czech Republic), Lazaro Bruzon (Cuba), Dmitry Andreikin (Russia) and Le Quang Liem (Vietnam). The rate of play was 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes to finish the game with 30 seconds increment from move 1. After five rounds, Andreikin, Navara and Le Quang Liem were leading with 3.5 points. Of these three players, it was the Vietnamese grandmaster who continued strongly. In the next round he defeated Dominguez from the white side of a King’s Indian, then drew with Andreikin in a Closed Sicilian and then beat Bruzon with White in a Slav. At that point Le Quang Liem was in sole lead with 5.5/8, a point clear of Andreikin, Navara and Ivanchuk!

The Ukrainian had started with a somewhat disappointing 50% score after seven rounds, but then did everything possible to win the tournament he had won several times before. In round 8 Ivanchuk defeated Andreikin in a Sämisch King’s Indian and then beat Bruzon. In the last round, Ivanchuk defeated Liem. Here are some nice games from the event. You can access the official website here.



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