Sunday, January 30, 2011

Nakamura Wins Wijk aan Zee (Tata Steel Chess Festival) Convincingly

If the chess world didn't know it before, they do now.  USA's GM Hikaru Nakamura won the A Group at the Tata Steel Chess Festival convincingly, a half-point ahead of the other contenders, including current World Chess Champion GM Anand of India and the world's current highest-rated player GM Magnus Carlsen.  Here are the final standings:

1.H. Nakamura9
2.V. Anand
3.L. Aronian
M. Carlsen
8
5.V. Kramnik
M. Vachier-Lagrave
7.A. Giri
R. Ponomariov
9.I. Nepomniachtchi
Wang Hao
6
11.A. Grischuk
E. l'Ami
J. Smeets
14.A. Shirov4

Nakamura takes home the Euros 10,000 first prize.  What the heck happened with Grischuk and Shirov?  I'm not used to seeing them at the bottom of the rankings!

In the C Group, where the two chess femmes played, here are the results of the final round and the final standings:

Round 13 - Sunday the 30th
R. van Kampen - B. Bok ½-½
D. Vocaturo - I. Nyzhnyk ½-½
M. Kazhgaleyev - D. Swiercz ½-½
J.W. de Jong - K. Lahno 0-1
M. Bluvshtein - I. Ivanisevic 1-0
T. Sachdev - S. Siebrecht 0-1
R. Pruijssers - M. van der Werf 0-1

Standings after round 13:
1. D. Vocaturo 9
2. I. Nyzhnyk 8½
3. K. Lahno 8
4. M. Bluvshtein 7½

I. Ivanisevic
D. Swiercz
7. M. Kazhgaleyev 7
8. B. Bok 6½
T. Sachdev 
10. S. Siebrecht 5½
11. M. van der Werf 5
12. R. van Kampen 4½
13. J.W. de Jong 4
R. Pruijssers

An excellent result by GM Kateryna Lahno and an outstanding showing by IM Tania Sachdev, who was the lowest rated player in the C Group at ELO 2391!  Congratulations to both GM Lahno and IM Sachdev for their fine play - I do love a femme who plays fighting chess :)

How about seeing more women chessplayers introduced into the A and B Invitational Groups too!  Hey, Tata Steel, you have one of the best female players in the world in India, your home base.  Make an offer to her to play in the B Group next year and make it so good she won't refuse.

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