Vassily Ivanchuk’s Powerful Start at Capablanca Memorial
Victories against Nigel Short and Evgeny Alekseev
Report by Chessdom
The 45th Capablanca Memorial is being held on 10th-22nd June in Havana, Cuba. The Elite Group is a six-player double round robin with Vassily Ivanchuk as top seed. This is Ivanchuk’s fourth participation in Havana, after he won the tournament back in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Russia is represented by Evgeny Alekseev and Ian Nepomniatchi, top Cuban players Leinier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzon present the local challenge and Nigel Short of England is also participating.
Ivanchuk made it known that he will seriously attempt to win his fourth Capablanca trophy after a powerful start when he scored two victories – against Short and Alekseev. These were actually the only decided games as the rest of the field was relatively peaceful. We’ve already seen one Berlin Wall and one Petroff defence.
Round 1 results:
Nigel Short – Vassily Ivanchuk 0-1
Leinier Dominguez – Lazaro Bruzon draw
Ian Nepomniatchi – Evgeny Alekseev draw
Round 2 results:
Vassily Ivanchuk – Evgeny Alekseev 1-0
Lazaro Bruzon – Ian Nepomniatchi draw
Nigel Short – Leinier Dominguez draw
In addition, there are also Premier Group, a ten-player round robin, and Open tournament with 107 participants. Premier Group is featuring GM Almeida Quintana Omar CUB 2541, GM Quesada Perez Yuniesky CUB 2582, IM Ortiz Suarez Isan Reynaldo CUB 2544, GM Corrales Jimenez Fidel CUB 2590, GM Nogueiras Santiago Jesus CUB 2570, GM Khairullin Ildar RUS 2617, GM Cordova Emilio PER 2552, GM Hernandez Holden CUB 2543, GM Bachmann Axel PAR 2563 and GM Potkin Vladimir RUS 2634.
A number of other Cuban Grandmasters are playing the Open, top rated among them being Yuri Gonzalez Vidal. Portuguese GM Luis Galego is also in the competition, as well as guests from Netherlands.
Short is an embarrassment to chess.
This anon hopes Ivanchuk keeps doing well.
What’s up with that brave person’s slam against Short? How is that appropriate?
this guy is really good!