Danzhou, British Champs Round 6
Hello again dear chess friends! The ending of Biel might leave a sad vortex in our hearts (the decisive chess was outstanding - nearly half of the games had decisive results, and virtually all of the draws were hard fights), but we can now pay some attention to happenings in the rest of the chess world.
During the off day in Biel, I'd briefly covered the first two rounds of the Danzhou Super GM tournament - perhaps a bit uncharitably (but not inaccurately), I'd mentioned that the first two rounds in Danzhou had featured less than fiery chess. Presumably all of the gentlemen heard of my plaintive whines for exciting chess, as we've since been treated to some outstanding fights. But outside of any tongue in cheek jesting, this tournament was bound to feature some excellent games - everyone is over 2700, and many of the participants are well known for having very concrete and exciting styles (Fedoseev and Wei Yi most prominently come to mind).
Today's round featured some absolutely lovely duels - Quang Liem Le overwhelmed Shankland with a nasty kingside assault, Yangyi Yu very accurately refuted an opening misadventure from Fedoseev, and Duda showed outstanding resilience in the face of maximum aggression from Xiangzhi Bu and accurately converted his advantage in the ending. After six rounds, Yangyi Yu is leading the field with 4/6, while Duda and Bu share 2nd-3rd with 3.5/6 - American chess fans lament Shankland's performance, who sits in shared last with Fedoseev. A downturn was inevitable for the American star - his 2018 has been a gift from beyond, and a bit of a slump can just be seen as a consolidation of his humongous gains. Despite the ramblings of certain elected officials, American chess has never been stronger!
And finally, the British Championships today finished their 6th round, and things have gone according to expectations so far - Michael Adams and Gawain Jones lead the field with 5/6, and are trailed by a pack at 4.5/6 that includes David Howell and Luke McShane. This venerable championship series (in its 105th run!) is a massive Swiss tournament, meaning Adams and Jones will face off tomorrow - but it's wrong to say that this one game could decide the tournament, since after tomorrow we still have three rounds to play! I'll look at one game from this tournament, but a somewhat surprising selection - the 2nd round featured the semi-retired mega talent Luke McShane get picked off by massive rating underdog IM David Eggleston. McShane seemed to be doing the routine Swiss system grind - taking a lower rated player into a positional slog and simply outplaying him. This course was followed to a point...until the position exploded into chaos!
I'll give two games from Danzhou and the aformentioned Eggleston-McShane game with annotations that might be slightly more brief than previous efforts - though being terse is not a virtue I possess, my need for sleep is beginning to outweigh my loquaciousness. Thanks for coming back, and we'll see you tomorrow!
http://view.chessbase.com/cbreader/2018/8/3/Game88704250.html