|
Events |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
European Individual Chess Championship 2021, Round 10
With only 2 rounds left to be played, the sole leader, on 7½ out of 9, was Russian Anton Demchenko, followed by Rauf Mamedov of Azerbaijan and 16-year-old Vincent Keymer of Germany each on 7 points. There followed 8 players on 6½, and 21 players on 6 points.
The top-board game in round 10 was Anton Demchenko v Vincent Keymer whose current ratings are only 5 points different, while the 2nd-board game was Rauf Mamedov v Bogdan-Daniel Deac (of Romania) whose ratings are 15 points different. Such rating differences are of course effectively zero (at most 2 grading points in “old money”).
The 1st-board game developed into an ending with R + B + 4P v R + R + 2P. And ended in a draw, but only after a 51-move fight Click here to play through the game Anton Demchenko ½-½ Vincent Keymer on screen.
The 2nd-board game was played out, instead of a draw being agreed before things had really started, as had happened in Mamedov’s previous three games. Did Mamedov offer a draw early on and get turned down? (Traditional electronic recording of games and their portrayal on screen tends not to catch such things. The Laws of Chess require “(=)” to be recorded on the score-sheet when a draw is offered, but this does not filter through to PGN notation.) Any such offer was refused, and Deac won, first a pawn then the ending. Click here to play through the game Rauf Mamedov 0-1 Bogdan-Daniel Deac.
That left Anton Demchenko still in the sole lead, on 8 out of 10, so needing a round-11 win to secure the title, but still with group of 4 players on 7½ who could catch him up if he drew, or even overtake him if he lost.
England players’ results were as follows:
One would rather expect Gawain Jones to be able to beat his German FM opponent on the basis of ratings, while on the same basis, the other two England players looked beforehand to be facing uphill struggles, albeit to differing degrees.
Gawain Jones, in seemingly one of the last games to finish, did indeed eventually win. (Game moves not yet available.)
In Lorin D’Costa’s game, the opening was the Reti with 1. .. d5, and became essentially a sort of Queen’s Gambit accepted, but with White playing, eventually, d3 rather than d4, so keeping the long diagonal open, so allowing White’s 13. g4. The game looked as though it would be interesting whatever way it turned out. In the event Black lost. Click here to play through the game Aydin Suleymanli 1-0 Lorin D’Costa on screen.
Edmund Player won.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||