2018 Isle of Man tournament begins
Games & Tactics
One of the year’s strongest open tournaments began Saturday on the Isle of Man. A huge prize fund of 144k british pounds and no doubt at least a million euros budget considering the number and quality of top GMs invited.
TOP 61
The tournament boasts 165 players from 37 countries, of which 145 have FIDE titles, including 80 grandmasters. As we can see from the above graphic, the organizers wanted the event to be top-heavy, and they surely succeeded. Only Carlsen and Caruana are missing from the list of participants, and that is probably because they are busy preparing for their World Championship match in London next month.
The Sponsor
This year’s tournament has the rather awkward official name ‘Chess.Com Isle of Man International’, but the chief sponsor must be the Scheinberg family, today apparently exiled to the Isle of Man. You can read some of the intrigue related to the one time owners of PokerStars HERE.
I just assume that Chess.Com is allowing its name to be used for the event without actually making any direct or indirect financial contribution. Of course, I may be wrong, but the official website for the tournament is deliberately vague and unhelpful with respect to such details.
That being said, Peter Doggers & Company (as I like to refer to the Chess.Com social media gang) are competently taking care of commentary, online presentation and what not. All the information you need for watching this tournament online can be found HERE.
Of course, numerous other websites that offer online services can also be found with a simple Google search, or by taking a look at the side bar on the right. The tournament is 9 rounds long and will finish next Sunday.
Some Tactics & Games from the 1st round
Schneider,I – Moksh,A IOM 20.10.2018
White to play and win material.
Laustsen,L – Dragnev,V IOM 20.10.2018
Black to play and win (decisive material advantage)
Shyam, Sundar – Lorscheid,G IOM 20.10.2018
How can White get a decisive advantage? (mate or material advantage)
Hoefesauer,T – gm Adhiban IOM 20.10.2018
Black has a strong attack. In the game he continued imprecisely with 21…Bf2 (22.Rh3!). Instead, Black has a clear way to win. How?
gm Kovalev – gm Guramishvili IOM 20.10.2018 (1-0)
As is normal in most open tournaments, the 1st round often witnesses some very unusual pairings. Fortunately. I say this because it often leads to entertaining and instructive games such as this one.
Jackson,J – gm Short,N IOM 20.10.2018 (0-1)
Ditto the previous commentary. Here Nigel shows that becoming a politician has not been detrimental to his chess.
gm Karjakin – wgm Soumya IOM 20.10.2018 (1-0)
Really instructive play by Karjakin, who prefers to slowly torture and strangle his opponent rather than blitz her off the board.
wgm Houska – gm Gelfand IOM 20.10.2018 (0-1)
Very different from Karjakin’s win, here Gelfand plays a complicated and wild game. At one point, it seems to me, White forgot to resign.
gm Grischuk – Merry,A IOM 20.10.2018 (1-0)
A reasonable fight by Black, but what can one do against Grischuk? He plays so well.