29 October 2002 22:15
CHESS
The first Selfoss Milk tournament took place between 8-16 October in this town in the south of Iceland. Sponsored by
the three major dairy companies involved in the dairy industry, which is centred around Selfoss, it consisted of two 10
player all-play-alls with a strong grandmaster tournament averaging 2547 (category 12) and a much more modest category 3
"Challengers" event.
The top seed in the grandmaster tournament was the formerly Bosnian now Dutch Ivan Sokolov, who started with a
blistering 4/4 but slowed with two draws before losing to Helgi Olafsson (Iceland) in round 7. This allowed Predrag
Nikolic (Bosnia) to take the lead and it was only by defeating Russian Pavel Tregubov in the final round that Sokolov
caught up. The final scores were Nikolic and Sokolov 6.5 and Tregubov 6. And Luke McShane was next on 5.5 together with
the Icelandic champion Hannes Stefansson.
When I spoke to Luke, he said that the tournament was highly enjoyable. His best win was against Olafsson but the
fighting draw with Stefansson was even more interesting and I'm very grateful to Luke for telling me about it.
I'm not sure - and neither is Luke - if this hybrid ...e5 system has a name! After 14.Qd2, Stefansson was
threatening to take a measure of control with 15.Nd5 so Luke's 14...d5 was very natural. If 15.exd5 Rfd8 Black
easily regains the pawn but never believe a grandmaster if he tells you that he's "seen everything". In
fact, Luke had hardly considered 15.Nxd5 and so had to make it a real sacrifice! 17...b5 was important to open the b
file so that White can't castle long. The Black lead in development was such that after 22.Kf2 Luke was able to
sacrifice a knight to get at the White king and it ended in perpetual check.
Hannes Stefansson v
Luke McShane
Selfoss 2002 (round 4)
Sicilian Defence
Jon Speelman
1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Nc3 d6
4. d4 cxd4
5. Nxd4 e5
6. Nde2 Be7
7. Nd5 Nf6
8. Nxe7 Qxe7 9. Nc3 h6
10. Be3 Ng4 11. Bc1 Nf6
12. f3 0-0
13. Be3 Be6 14. Qd2 d5
15. Nxd5 Bxd5 16. exd5 Rfd8 17. c4 b5
18. b3 bxc4
19. bxc4 e4
20. Be2 exf3
21. gxf3 Nb4 22. Kf2 Nfxd5 23. cxd5 Rxd5 24. Qc3 Re8 25. Rae1 Qh4+
26. Kf1 Rxe3 27. Qxe3 Qh3 Draw
[UKIR [UK & Ireland Intelligence Wire]] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
