Hello, Wednesday! The approaching holiday season is as busy as ever. While most of the world’s eyes are on the King Salman world championship blitz tournament to take place right after Xmas, there is no shortage of other great events to follow. The games and game-fragments that I present today are mostly from the very strong Sunway Sitges International.
Hambleton on a roll!
Canadian IM Aman Hambleton seems to be blazing his way to his 3rd GM-norm as he has an impressive 4.5 points from 5 games in Sitges. The past 3 rounds saw Aman draw with GM Zubov, and then defeat both GM Bologan and GM Predke. Aman’s performance rating is close to 2900. Keep it up!
gm Zubov,A – im Hambleton Sitges rd 3 (draw)
im Hambleton – gm Bologan Sitges rd 4 (1 – 0)
gm Predke – im Hambleton Sitges rd 5 (0 – 1)
This year’s tournament has attracted more than 100 titled players from all over the world, competing for $25,000 in prizes. You can visit the official site as well as all of the individual results on ChessResults. There is even a twitter set up!
From other games
gm Sokolov,I – Pageken,J
Sitges rd 1
Sokolov has emerged from the opening with excellently placed pieces and is now quickly able to organize a winning attack.
gm Shankland – im Ootes,L
Sitges rd 2
Black has somehow ”forgotten” to castle and now Shankland is going to punish him for that. Chess can be a cruel mistress…
im Raja,H – Alok,S Sitges rd 3
An exciting and very typical position arising from the super-sharp Dragon variation. Who will mate who first?
5 reasons why Sitges is Spain’s best gay destination
