The fifth round of Cappelle-La-Grande was played today. The first five boards finished with draws, so the leaders allowed the chasing pack to catch up at 4/5 points. This massive open has 564 participants, so the amount of leaders grew to 26.

Mikhail Gurevich and Eric Hansen simplified the position quite quickly to reach an endgame with rooks and knights with very solid pawn structures for both sides. Draw in 25 moves.

Alexander Kovacevic and Maxim Rodshtein also signed a fast draw in 24 moves. However, the final position seems to offer some play – the pawn structures are not that solid and the queens are still on the board.

Yuri Vovk and Samvel Ter-Sahakyan had a longer fight. They signed the scoresheets in a position with K + B vs K. Vovk played actively in the opening and early middlegame, but the young Armenian correctly simplified to an opposite-colored bishops endgame to get the draw.

Chilean GM Mauricio Flores was not able to convert a R + 1 pawn vs N + 2 pawns endgame against GM Renier Vasquez from Spain. Flores played very actively, sacrificing a pawn in the opening for the initiative. Vasquez was forced to sacrifice an exchange to free his position and arrived to the mentioned inferior endgame after missing some chances in the middlegame. The peace treaty was signed on move 82.

First seed Krishnan Sasikiran is not having a good tournament. After drawing his first two games with lower rated opponents, he lost today against IM Karen Grigoryan. The Armenian played with white and went for a positional setup in the opening. He gained the initiative and simplified to an endgame with a bishop and five pawns against the Indian’s rook and two pawns. Sasikiran resigned on move 48. It will be hard for the favorite to recover from this setback, given the amount of players that share the lead.

However, the biggest upset of the day was the victory of the Polish untitled player Lukasz Jarmula (2164) over Croatian GM Ognjen Jovanic.

Standings after 5 rounds:

1 m INDJIC Aleksandar 2502 SRB 4
2 g RODSHTEIN Maxim 2616 ISR 4
3 g GHARAMIAN Tigran 2661 FRA 4
4 g KOVACEVIC Aleksandar 2563 SRB 4
5 g GUREVICH Mikhail 2581 TUR 4
6 g VAZQUEZ IGARZA Renier 2565 ESP 4
7 g KHARITONOV Alexandr 2536 RUS 4
8 g FEDOROV Alexei 2576 BLR 4
9 g ZHIGALKO Andrey 2588 BLR 4
10 g PETKOV Vladimir 2559 BUL 4
11 g EINGORN Vereslav S 2547 UKR 4
12 g FLORES RIOS Mauricio 2481 CHI 4
13 g SJUGIROV Sanan 2646 RUS 4
14 g AZAROV Sergei 2627 BLR 4
15 g VOVK Yuri 2594 UKR 4
16 g DANIN Alexandre 2578 RUS 4
17 g TER-SAHAKYAN Samvel 2563 ARM 4
18 m STELLA Andrea 2477 ITA 4
19 g PAPIN Vasily 2562 RUS 4
20 g VOROBIOV Evgeny E. 2584 RUS 4
21 g HANSEN Eric 2557 CAN 4
22 g BOROVIKOV Vladislav 2557 UKR 4
23 g DJUKIC Nikola 2538 MNE 4
24 m GRIGORYAN Karen H. 2531 ARM 4
25 g FEDORCHUK Sergey A. 2643 UKR 4
26
JARMULA Lukasz 2164 POL 4
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar February 27, 2013 Daily News, Major Tournaments 2 Comments
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