Sunday 22 July 2007

2007 Canadian Open

Chinese GM Xiangzhi Bu was the winner of the very strong 2007 Canadian Open with 8.0/10. He finished half a point ahead of a raft of titled players including GM Nigel Short (ENG) , GM Kamil Miton (POL), GM Chanda Sandipan (IND), GM Bator Sambuev (RUS), and IM Tomas Krnan (CAN). Full coverage of this event can be found at canchess.blogspot.com, which btw demonstrates the use of blogs as a way of publicising an event.
One of the interesting things about this tournament was that a number of international players were funded by their countries embassies, as both the tournament, and the embassies, were located in Ottawa. With the centenary of the founding of Canberra coming up in 2013 (and a number of events already being planned), it might be worth looking at this approach for an Australian Open or Canberra Centenary International.
One of the most interesting games from this event was between GM Mark Bluvshtein and GM Victor Mikhalevski, both recent visitors to Australia (and Canberra). The game followed theory for over 20 moves, with the first new move occurring at 28!

Bluvshtein,M (2520) - Mikhalevski,V (2590)
Canadian Open 2007 Ottawa Canada (4), 09.07.2007

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 9.Nbd2 Nc5 10.c3 d4 11.Ng5 Qxg5 12.Qf3 0-0-0 13.Bxe6+ fxe6 14.Qxc6 Qxe5 15.b4 Qd5 16.Qxd5 exd5 17.bxc5 dxc3 18.Nb3 d4 19.Ba3 g6 20.Bb4 Bg7 21.a4 d3 22.axb5 d2 23.bxa6 c2 24.Nxd2 Bxa1 25.Rxa1 Rhe8 26.Rc1 Re4 27.Bc3 Rc4 (D)
28.Rxc2 N Rd3 29.Rb2 Rcxc3 30.a7 Ra3 31.Rb8+ Kd7 32.a8Q Rxa8 33.Rxa8 Rxd2 34.g3 ½-½

1 comment:

DeNovoMeme said...

How could that event be better than a 2005 Canadian event ...

http://hisnibs.blogspot.com/2005/03/thestarcom-beery-chess-whiz-unzips-new.html