After a topsy-turvy penultimate round we find ourselves with six players tied for the lead, battling for top honors at the Reykjavik Open!
Six players tie for the top of the @ReykjavikOpen 2024 after eight played rounds!
Scoring 6.5 points, each, Bogdan Daniel-Deac (ROU, 2690), Paulius Pultinevicius (LTU, 2575), Praveen Balakrishnan (USA, 2490), Sebastian Maze (FRA, 2551), Alisher Suleymanov (KAZ, 2506), and… pic.twitter.com/ehmLWuD4iJ
— European Chess Union (@ECUonline) March 20, 2024
Guðmundur Kjartansson kept the local hopes alive by beating former winner Baskaran Adhiban with the black pieces. Kjartansson employed the normally solid Berlin Wall but found himself in trouble after Adhibans’s 13th move.
The computers like Adhiban's 13.Ndb5!! against GM Kjartansson evaluated over +1 against the Berlin. Will he be the first one to position himself nicely for the last round? #ReykjavikChess24 #Chess pic.twitter.com/WAvz6lis6g
— ReykjavikOpenChess (@ReykjavikOpen) March 20, 2024
Computers like white’s position here!
For example a move like 17.h3 simply protects g4 and it’s awfully hard for black to untangle and let alone make a useful move. Adhiban perhaps rushed 17.Nd5+? and all of a sudden black is off the hook after the cool, calm and collected 17…Kd7 as white doesn’t have any dangerous discoveries. Adhiban realized he messed up and spent an awful lot of time trying to make things right. His move 18.Bg5? was not a step in the right direction and Kjartansson could have punished him by taking on g4 but his move 18…Kc6 was good enough to keep an advantage.
Kjartansson hung on to the extra piece and Adhiban tried what he could to keep up some threats but in the end Kjartansson was up to the task and didn’t falter on the 40th move as so often happens in these situations.
40…Rg2+ 41.Kh4 Bf5 was clinical and the windmill tactic decides.
Top seed Bogdan-Daniel Deac managed to join the leader by beating 5-time tournament winner Hannes Stefansson. Deac had some pressure for a while but Stefansson was more or less out of the woods in a drawn rook endgame when he lost his footing.
48…Kg8?? is a losing blunder. Black still had a tablebase draw with either 48…Ra5 or 48…h5, Seeing the ideas after 48…h5 looks less human as a sensible line could be 48…h5 49.Kf4 Ra4+ 50.Ke4 Ra8 (only move!) 51.Kg5 Rg8+ 52.Kh4
Here black would draw with 52…Kg7! 53.Kxh5 Kf6 and we win back one of the pawns as g4 isn’t possible due to the checkmate on h8!
Lithuanian GM Paulius Pultinevicius managed to outlast veteran GM Johann Hjartarson. Johann was slightly better out of the opening but Paulius got better changes in the middlegame but failed to capitalize. Johann looked to be safe when he blundered.
54.h5?? was bad as after 54…Dh1! black suddenly has vicious mating threats. White’s king made a run for it but couldn’t escape the mating net.
Tournament regular Sebastien Maze joined the leader pack as well, by spoiling an otherwise pretty good tournament for Jakub Seemann. The young Polish IM has played well and led for a while but in the endgame he lost the thread and had to sacrifice a piece for pawns but didn’t get enough for it and Maze capitalized.
Yesterday, IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson had a very nice game but this time he was on the receiving end.
Having just luckboxed his way back into the game he would have had to find 30…Kg7!! to save the day. Instead he blundered right back with 30…Qg6?? and was in for a rude awakening after 31.Rxe5! Rxe5 32.Bf6+ and black getse mated.
Finally, Praveen Balakrishnan joined the leaders after swindling a drawn rook endgame against young Sushanth Kamabathula (1918!!) who is having a fantastic tournament!
Suleymenov stays in the leader pack after his draw in the 8th round.
Six players tied at the top before the final round!
In the final round, we have individual matchups between the top 6. At this stage a combination of a lot of things will decide matters with luck undoubtedly knocking on the door at some stage! The final round will hopefully be exciting!
Games with 15-minute delay can be observed here:
This year there is a record number of streamers with a total of 8 players streaming their games live.
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- Anna Cramling streams on Twitch and Youtube with Pia Cramling commentary.
- The Botez sistersAlexandra og Andrea are also live on Twitch and on Youtube with Jon Ludvig Hammer providing commentary.
- WGM Dina Belenkaya is onTwitch and on Youtube with Ben Finegold commenting
- Zachary Saine „The Chessnerd“ is onTwitch
- Tallulah Roberts „Lularobs“ is o Twitch
- Anna-Maja Kazarian is on Twitch and on Youtube
- Alexandra Prado is on Twitch
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