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11th Monarch Assurance Isle of Man Chess International 28 Sept - 6 Oct 2002

Round 1 - 28 September

John Saunders reports: The 11th Monarch Assurance Chess International got underway at 1330 hrs this afternoon at the Cherry Orchard Aparthotel, Port Erin, Isle of Man. Herewith, the first round results. We also have the games in PGN; a report of the day's play will follow tomorrow morning.

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Defending champion GM Mikhail Ulibin (left) faces England's IM Simon Williams

                  

Round 1 (2002.09.28)

Ulibin, Mikhail          -  Williams, Simon          1/2   66  A80  Dutch defence
Tyomkin, Dimitri         -  Epishin, Vladimir        1/2   22  A46  Queen's pawn
Dautov, Rustem           -  Peralta, Fernando        1-0   55  A90  Dutch defence
Kunte, Abhijit           -  Shulman, Yuri            1/2   16  C00  French
Neverov, Valeriy         -  Grunberg, Mihai          1-0   23  A80  Dutch defence
Palliser, Richard        -  Sulskis, Sarunas         1/2   47  E54  Nimzo Indian
Cioara, Andrei Nestor    -  Fridman, Daniel          0-1   26  B09  Pirc; Austrian
Rotstein, Arkadij        -  Ledger, Andrew           1/2   65  A11  English 1 c4
Ansell, Simon            -  Stocek, Jiri             1/2   85  B51  Sicilian
Zapata, Alonso           -  Welling, Gerard          1-0   32  B01  Scandinavian
Collins, Sam             -  Goloshchapov, Alexander  0-1   77  B85  Sicilian
Lalic, Bogdan            -  Gladyszev, Oleg          1/2   15  E68  Kings Indian
Hinks-Edwards, Thom      -  Hebden, Mark             0-1   40  C91  Ruy Lopez
Kogan, Artur             -  Pert, Richard G          1/2   45  B25  Sicilian Closed
Brady, Stephen           -  Felgaer, Ruben           1/2   21  B22  Sicilian 2 c3
Ward, Christopher        -  Cooper, Lawrence         1-0   48  E43  Nimzo Indian
Daly, Colm               -  Miezis, Normunds         1/2   66  B42  Sicilian
Ellison, Derek George    -  Orr, Mark J L            0-1   62  C02  French Advance
Hanley, Craig            -  Goodger, Martyn          1-0   32  A87  Dutch defence
Lutton, J.Ezra           -  Dougherty, Michael       1-0   22  B23  Sicilian Closed
Cafolla, Peter           -  Harborne, Matthew        0-1   34  E20  Nimzo Indian
Shepherd, Michael        -  Marchand, Francois       0-1   35  A52  Benoni
Palus, Ryszard           -  Ormsby, Alan             1-0   41  D10  Slav defence
Purton, Ben              -  Rayner, Francis          0-1   37  B23  Sicilian Closed
Grant, Alan              -  Bennion, David           1-0   59  A20  English 1 c4 e5
Lutton, E Josiah         -  Hutchinson, Norman       1-0   29  B10  Caro-Kann
Vuilleumier, Alex        -  Hanley, James L          1-0   61  B52  Sicilian
Spanton, Timothy         -  Gordon, Stephen J        0-1   40  E20  Nimzo Indian
Blackburn, Jonathan L    -  Waugh, Jonathon C        1-0   47  D58  Queen's gambit
Kelly, David             -  Fox, Anthony             1/2   22  C30  King's Gambit
Van Kemenade, Rudy       -  Cheshire, Paul L         1-0   41  C92  Ruy Lopez
Burrows, Martin          -  Bye                      1/2   
Breaking The Code

This year's Monarch Assurance line-up doesn't feature many household names, but more than makes up for that with strength in depth. 23 nations are represented amongst the 64 players lining up for the open tournament, with many players making their UK debuts. The field includes 19 grandmasters; so many, in fact, that the accelerated pairings for the first round included more than one all-grandmaster clash. As a result it was desperately hard fought with many games going down to the wire. It looks like we are in for another attritional event where the last man left standing takes the pot. And I can say "man" without offending anyone's sensibilities as unfortunately we do not have any female competitors this year.

There were no significant surprises in terms of lower-rated players beating their superiors, though one or two came close. Nevertheless we saw some resolute chess from the younger IMs, several of whom held much higher rated opponents to draws.
IM Simon Williams of England faced last year's champion Mikhail Ulibin of Russia. Simon has had an up and down summer in terms of form. It started with a total disaster in the Smith and Williams Young Masters tournament in July where he finished last. He then improved a little in the British Championship where he scored 5/9 before withdrawing. But earlier in September he got back to his best with a second place in the Budapest 'First Saturday' GM tournament, beating all three grandmasters and getting close to a GM norm. Simon brought some of his Budapest form with him and gave Mikhail Ulibin a very tough work-out, with the Russian requiring some brinkmanship to keep his position afloat before turning the tables and applying pressure to Simon's position. In the end both players deserved their half point. Ulibin-Williams.

Incidentally, while we're on the subject of the Budapest event, the performance of one Nguyen Ngoc Truongson of Vietnam in a category 3 IM tournament there caught the eye: 11/12 for a TPR of 2708. And he's only aged 11!
Tyomkin-Epishin was a fairly short draw (one of very few this round), but Dautov-Peralta was a tough game. The Argentinian fought hard to keep Dautov at bay but slipped up near the end, allowing his opponent's queen and bishop to get to his king. Dautov-Peralta.


Andrei Nestor CioaraMihai GrunbergIt was a very bad day for the tournament's two Romanians, IMs Andrei Nestor Cioara (pictured left) and Mihai Grunberg (right), and I'm not just talking about the chess. Thinking that they were going into 'Euroland', they had turned up in the Isle of Man with their pockets filled with Euros. Note to other unwary tourists to this part of the world: the UK and the Isle of Man are not yet at home to 'Mr Euro', and, by the way, we still drive on the left and like our beer at room temperature. Having found that their cash was just so much 'Monopoly money' this side of the English Channel, the two Romanians were both short-changed at the board as well. Grunberg was turned over in 23 moves by Ukrainian grandmaster Valery Neverov, while Cioara only lasted three more moves against Latvia's Daniel Fridman. Grunberg played a dubious Dutch Defence and never really got out of the opening. Cioara played a superficially promising piece sacrifice against Fridman, but the Latvian proved that he could get to Cioara's back rank before the Romanian could deliver his 'mating attack'. Neverov-Grunberg and Cioara-Fridman (with notes).


Normunds MiezisAs the tournament's game input man, I should put in a special mention for the game between Colm Daly of Ireland and Normunds Miezis (pictured left) of Latvia. If ever there was a world championship for keying in chess games, the scoresheets from a match between these two should sort out the real code-breakers from the also-rans. I'm guessing here, but Colm's score sheet looked like it had been written in ancient Sumerian cuneiform writing, while Normunds did a nice line in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Even those war-time code-breakers at Bletchley Park or the guy who figured out the Minoan Linear B script would have found the two Daly-Miezis scoresheets a bit of a challenge.

Stewart Reuben has a nice anecdote about indecipherable scores. While working as arbiter at a big London tournament (remember when we used to have those?), he noticed that Korchnoi's scoresheet would be completely unreadable for the bulletin editor. After the game, he asked the great man if he would be so kind as to write his score out again. "Yes, of course, no problem," said Viktor, before adding "but you won't be able to read the copy either!".


Anyway, here in Port Erin, I don't have access to an Enigma machine or the Rossetta Stone to help in deciphering handwriting, but I do have the world's best chess code-cracking software - Fritz 7. It was a challenge, but with my trusty chess-hound sniffing out the likeliest moves and some desperate comparisons between the two sets of hieroglyphs, I think I finally decoded the Daly-Miezis game. It proved to be worth the trouble as Colm Daly extricated himself from what looked a likely loss with some shrewd endgame play. Daly-Miezis.

Ruben FelgaerTwo other Irishmen were embroiled in hard fights with strong players. Stephen Brady lined up against the current champion of Argentina. Ruben Felgaer (pictured right) is not yet a GM, but since taking his national championship in March (incidentally this was after a tie-break match with Fernando Peralta who is also playing in the Monarch), he has been very impressive on his extended tour of Europe this summer. He scored 8½/9 for an amazing TPR of 2810 at a tournament in Aarhus in July and followed this up with a share of first place in the very strong Politiken Cup, taking the scalps of Nick Pert and this tournament's no.1 seed, Vladimir Epishin, in the process. Stephen Brady was not intimidated by any of this; perhaps he was blissfully unaware of the Argentinian's credentials. He played a very enterprising exchange sacrifice which enabled him to take a vice-like grip on the position. But discretion proved to be the better part of valour and an Irish peace offer was accepted on move 21.
Alexander Goloshchapov

Before the late Tony Miles arrived on the UK chess scene (and how we all miss him), a 'half point in the hand' against a grandmaster was regarded as better than a 'full point in the bush'. The young Irish champion Sam Collins, to his considerable credit, is more of a Tony Miles in these circumstances and he turned down a draw when he felt he had a good chance of winning against Ukrainian GM Alexander Goloshchapov (pictured left). True, he soon managed to win the exchange but at too great a cost in pawns. He lost back the exchange and it came down to a king and pawn versus king and two pawns ending, but one which is a theoretical draw. However, Sam knew that he would be subjected to a stern test of his knowledge of corresponding squares as Goloshchapov's king weaved back and forth across the board trying to outfox Sam's king. Unfortunately for Sam, the grandmaster setting the questions was less friendly than the UK's 'A' Level examiners: in this sort of test you either get all the questions right or you fail. Sam got one move wrong and that was enough to flunk the exam. Collins-Goloshchapov.


Alonso ZapataThere were several other games of note. Richard Palliser scored a nail-biting draw against GM Sulskis of Lithuania. Both players were in time trouble and a number of tactical possibilities may have been overlooked just before the time control. It was very exciting to watch. Palliser-Sulskis. The two Lutton brothers scored wins, with Ezra almost emulating his younger brother Josiah's big sacrifice from the Major Open. Not a Russian grandmaster scalp this time, but a much higher rated Canadian FM, and the sacrifice was made on the same square (g6). Lutton-Dougherty. Alonso Zapata (pictured right) finished his game against Gerard Welling very nicely; in fact, the more I look at it, the more I think this was the game of the day. If you only play through one game from today's round, make it this one. Zapata-Welling.


We have two Manx players in the field this year, Alan Ormsby and Jonathon Waugh. Both found the going too tough for them. Jonathon soldiered on a piece down for nothing before trying a humorous little stalemate cheapo involving leaving his rook en prise. Unfortunately for him, his opponent had guessed his punch-line and was ready with a 'one-liner' of his own; he put a knight en prise in reply. And he who laughs last, gets the full point. Blackburn-Waugh. Having mangled two traditional British proverbs in the course of the one report, I think it is time for me to shut up (until tomorrow).

©2002 Text and Photos - John Saunders. Not to be used or translated without permission

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