It finally happened: someone managed to stop the Iranian super-grandmaster Amin Tabatabaei, as the English grandmaster Matthew Wadsworth held him to a draw today in the penultimate round of the Reykjavik Open in Harpa. Dagur Ragnarsson is now the top Icelandic player with 6 points, followed by three of our grandmasters on 5.5 points.
Wadsworth had the White pieces against Tabatabaei and did not rock the boat too much in the Catalan. The middlegame was more or less equal, perhaps very slightly better for White, but nothing to speak of. It then transitioned into an endgame, which both players handled correctly, and there were no winning chances for either side in this game.
Final moments of Wadsworth vs Tabatabaei
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Tabatabaei is now on 7.5 points and should be fairly safe to win the tournament; he could even afford to lose in the final round, as he still has a winning margin over the players chasing him.
Jianchao Zhou is among the players on 6.5 points. He defeated the Frenchman with the “long name”, and it has to be said that Jianchao plays quite entertaining chess!
Others to reach 6.5 points were the old warrior Vasyl Ivanchuk, Mads Andersen (who made Mai Narva’s norm chances a bit tougher), Tong Xiao (who defeated Carissa Yip), and Vahap Sanal.
The Turk Sanal found a nice tactical shot in his game.
23.Re6! wins material thanks to the mating threat on g7
Guðmundur Kjartansson was the top Icelandic player going into the round, but he did not have a good day. He lost to the Norwegian Elham Amar. In a difficult position, Guðmundur walked into a knight fork with 33.Kb2??
After 33…Rdc4, White resigned.
Dagur Ragnarsson is now the top Icelandic player, having defeated the Kazakh Alisher Suleymanov—the grandmaster who beat Carlsen in a famous game not all that many years ago. Suleymanov’s 18th move was poor, 18…Nc8??, whereas Black would stand better with 18…Bb5!
White has a good punishment here that leaves him virtually winning: 19.Rb6! Dagur kept the upper hand for the rest of the game and converted.
The Chinese player Liu Bei continued his remarkable winning run and has now secured an IM norm. He defeated yet another titled player with very precise play. It is clear that Liu Bei is much stronger than his rating suggests.
Pictures from the 8th round (use arrow to click to next picture)
Top results
Standings:
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Tabatabaei leads with a one point margin. Six players are on 6.5 points. Tabatabaei is very likely to take the title; he only needs a draw with the White pieces and faces Mads Andersen in the final round. Dagur is the top Icelander with 6 points, while Guðmundur, Vignir, and Hannes are on 5.5 points.
The ninth and final round of the tournament starts tomorrow, Tuesday at 10:00.
Chess-Results
Games can be watched from these links:
Streamers:
- Hannah Sayce
- Tamara Kadovic
- Matthew Perchard (channel of Lularobs)
- Simon Williams
- Keti Tsatsalashvili (tbd)
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Misc.:
