15th Monarch Assurance Isle of Man International
23 September - 1 October 2006
Last updated:
Monday, September 6, 2010 9:43 PM
Round 4 - 26 September 2006
Beware of cheap imitations: we have the real world championship here
in Port Erin today - the Battle of the Grinders - with
Russia's answer to Keith Arkell, Mikhail Kobalia, playing the one and
only genuine Keith Arkell - the game opened
1 c4 c5... Alexander Areschenko looks on in silent admiration.
John Saunders reports: By a curious coincidence, a visitor who
dropped in to see us on the day of round four at the 2004 tournament also
called in to see us on the day of round four this year. Yes, this was
our old friend, Monarch* the Manx cat. He is a stray black cat who prowls
around the hotel vicinity. It was good to see him again, though there
was no sign of him in 2005. As you can see from the photo, he took quite
a shine to arbiter Peter Purland, who was sitting enjoying the sunshine
outside the hotel. However, when chief arbiter David Welch went to tickle
Monarch's tummy, the little monster got his claws out. "The speed
with which four paws and two jaws homed in on my hand was alarming,"
confessed the chastened arbiter. At least this dispels the superstition
that it is good luck to have a black cat cross your path, particularly
since our chief arbiter has since gone down with a bad case of flu.*
I've no idea if he really has a name, but Monarch seems most appropriate
for our purposes.
Monarch the Manx Cat wagging his invisible tail, and making friends
with arbiter Peter Purland
Mateusz Bartel of Poland beat Malakhatko with Black to move on to 4/4.
The 21-year-old is clearly someone to be watched. The last time I can
remember a (semi-) unknown player exploding out of the blocks like this
in a big British swiss event was in 1994 when the young Alexander Morozevich
steamrollered the opposition at Lloyds Bank Masters 1994, scoring 9½/10.
Bartel has a long way to go to emulate Morozevich but it takes something
special to score 4/4 in this event. Malakhatko tried to vary from a previous
Bartel game on move 5, but his opening play was unconvincing. The Pole
launched a vigorous queenside attack which soon put him well in control.
Fritz quibbled with 38...Qg2 (instead of which 38...Qa1+ is immediately
terminal) but otherwise it looked pretty good.
Poland 5, Rest of the World 0... two other Poles scored important wins.
Bartosz Socko beat Valery Neverov rather severely while Michal Krasenkow
vs Yuri Yakovich came down to a king and pawn endgame which favoured White.
Also, look out for Bobras' delightful finish against Kononenko. Dworakowska
completed the Polish success.
Elsewhere, Kuzubov played a very powerful move (25 Rxe5!) to explode
Zimmerman's position. Sriram was caught in a vicious opening trap after
his doubtful 8 f4. It has been played before but the last person to fall
for it (Bluvshtein) got away with it. Sriram was not so lucky. Shabalov
is back on the march with an efficient win against John Cox. Anna Zatonskih's
bright start came to an end when her queen became entombed against Kazhgaleyev.
Peter Wells seemed to be doing well against Areshchenko but then succumbed
to a mate in one in time pressure. Look out for Iordachescu's lovely 24...Re1!
move against Siebrecht.
See above, the Battle of the Grinders - for once, one of my predictions
is going to form - they were still grinding away at 7pm, 5½ hours
into play, and was one of the three last games to finish. Keith Arkell
seemed to be within reach of a draw but an inaccuracy (40...Nc4? instead
of 40...Qd1) let Kobalia in for the kill.
Also we have a rematch of the last round game between John Nicholson and
hotel manager Jean Depin, who has stepped in this afternoon for Harry
Minor who, most appropriately, has decided that he should be playing in
the Minor (Dennis Hemsley) tournament. Last year Nicholson-Depin ended
½-½ - Monsieur Jean tells us he has been getting in some
practice on playchess.com - we'll be monitoring his performance to see
if he has benefited from the extra practice. Jean's idea of pre-game preparation
was to take the control team out for a very nice buffet lunch at the Cherry
Orchard Hotel, which was much appreciated by yours truly and the arbiters
- but one wonders if it was the ideal move for our genial host. Later...
Monsieur Jean went down in flames - perhaps 10...Nxd4!? is an improvement
on the game. But John Nicholson had had a year to prepare for the Ocean
Castle Defence (1...g6 with an early ...e6) and the Irish preparation
was too good.
Malakhatko,V
(2594) - Bartel,M (2561)
Monarch Assurance Isle of Man Port Erin IOM (4.1), 26.09.2006
[Black has a big attack and continues energetically:] 35 ..Rab8! 36
Qxe6+ Kh8 37 Qxd6 Qa2+ 38 Kd1 Qg2? [Giving White a chance. 38 ..Qa1+!
39 Ke2 Rb2+ 40 Ke3 Qxf1 keeps it relatively simple.] 39 Rff3 [After
39 Ke1! Re8+ (best) 40 Qe5 Rxe5+ 41 fxe5 h6 42 e6 it is surprisingly difficult
to find a convincing winning continuation for Black.] 39 ..Qh1+ 40
Kd2 [40 Ke2 Rb2+ 41 Rd2 Re8+ mops up] 40 ..Rb2+ 0-1 [41 Ke3
Qe1+ and mate next move]
Kobalia,M
(2647) - Arkell,K (2479)
Monarch Assurance Isle of Man Port Erin IOM (4.9), 26.09.2006
40 ..Nc4? [Not best. 40 ..Qd1 maintains the balance.] 41 Rc7
Rb1 42 Rc8+ Kf7 43 f4 h6 [Black would like to support his knight with
43 ..b5 but then 44 Qa7+ and mate next move.] 44 f5 g5 45 hxg5 hxg5 46
Rc7+ Kf8 47 f6 b5? [Unfortunately this still leads to a forced win.
Black missed a hard chance to keep his ship afloat with 47 ..Qc3! keeping
a close watch on all the dark squares, e.g. 48 g3 Qd3 49 f7 Rxf1+! 50 Qxf1
Qxg3+ draws.] 48 Rc8+ Kf7 49 Qa7+ Kxf6 50 Qd4+ Kf7 [50 ..Kg6 51
Rg8+ Kh5 52 g4+ Kh4 53 Rh8+ Kg3 54 Rh3#] 51 Rc7+ Kg6 52 Qe4+ 1-0
Wells,P (2480) - Areshchenko,A (2641)
Monarch Assurance Isle of Man Port Erin IOM (4.10), 26.09.2006
26 Nh6+! gxh6 [Forced. 26 ..Kh7 27 Qxf7 Qg6 28 Rxe7 wins.] 27
Rxe7 Rxe7 28 Qf6 Qh7 29 Qxe7 [White's powerful combination has won him
control of the a1-h8 diagonal.] 29 ..Nd3 30 Qd7 [30 Bd4 was a strong
candidate move: 30 ..Qf5 31 Qxa7 looks like a useful extra pawn.] 30
..Ra8 31 Bd4?! [White can continue to harass the black rook with 31
Qc6! etc.] 31 ..Qe4 32 Qd6 Ne1 33 Bb2?? [Calamity. White has to
play 33 Rxe1 Qxe1+ 34 Kh2 when the continual threat of mate on g7/h8, plus
the safety of the white king probably hold the balance.] 33 ..Qg2 mate
Round: 4
Bd White Result Black --No--
1 Malakhatko, Vadim....... 2594 (2½) 0 - 1 Bartel, Mateusz......... 2561 (3) 13 21
2 Ikonnikov, Vyacheslav... 2587 (2½) ½ - ½ Akopian, Vladimir....... 2713 (2½) 15 1
3 Landa, Konstantin....... 2584 (2½) ½ - ½ Korneev, Oleg........... 2638 (2½) 17 5
4 Krasenkow, Mikhal....... 2635 (2½) 1 - 0 Yakovich, Yuri.......... 2583 (2½) 6 18
5 Golod, Vitali........... 2576 (2½) ½ - ½ Volkov, Sergey.......... 2628 (2½) 19 8
6 Socko, Bartosz.......... 2621 (2½) 1 - 0 Neverov, Valeriy........ 2556 (2½) 9 23
7 Kazhgaleyev, Murtas..... 2606 (2½) 1 - 0 Zatonskih, Anna......... 2432 (2½) 10 39
8 Gormally, Daniel W...... 2513 (2) ½ - ½ Postny, Evgeny.......... 2591 (2½) 30 14
9 Kobalia, Mikhail........ 2647 (2) 1 - 0 Arkell, Keith C......... 2479 (2) 3 34
10 Wells, Peter K.......... 2480 (2) 0 - 1 Areshchenko, Alexander.. 2641 (2) 33 4
11 Efimenko, Zahar......... 2632 (2) ½ - ½ Paehtz, Elizabeth....... 2456 (2) 7 37
12 Shabalov, Alexander..... 2604 (2) 1 - 0 Cox, John J............. 2418 (2) 11 42
13 Siebrecht, Sebastian.... 2417 (2) 0 - 1 Iordachescu, Viorel..... 2603 (2) 43 12
14 Sriram, Jha............. 2408 (2) 0 - 1 Khenkin, Igor........... 2586 (2) 49 16
15 Stocek, Jiri............ 2561 (2) ½ - ½ Palliser, Richard JD.... 2413 (2) 22 46
16 Kiriakov, Petr.......... 2554 (2) ½ - ½ Ferguson, Mark.......... 2389 (2) 24 51
17 Zozulia, Anna........... 2352 (2) 0 - 1 Greenfeld, Alon......... 2551 (2) 59 26
18 Kuzubov, Yuri........... 2554 (1½) 1 - 0 Zimmerman, Yuri......... 2374 (1½) 25 54
19 Bobras, Piotr........... 2535 (1½) 1 - 0 Kononenko, Tatiana...... 2387 (1½) 28 52
20 Roy Chowdhury, Saptarshi 2394 (1½) 0 - 1 Al Sayed, Mohamad N..... 2492 (1½) 50 32
21 Williams, Simon K....... 2473 (1½) ½ - ½ Sharma, Dinesh K........ 2358 (1½) 36 58
22 Peek, Marcel............ 2367 (1½) ½ - ½ Haslinger, Stewart G.... 2423 (1½) 55 40
23 Hanley, Craig A......... 2419 (1½) 1 - 0 Mannion, Steve R........ 2346 (1½) 41 60
24 Vijayalakshmi, Subbarama 2417 (1½) 1 - 0 Ashton, Adam G.......... 2329 (1½) 44 63
25 Sarakauskas, Gediminas.. 2414 (1½) 1 - 0 Mohota, Nisha........... 2313 (1½) 45 65
26 Vasilevich, Tatiana..... 2412 (1½) 1 - 0 Meenakshi, Subbaraman... 2310 (1½) 47 66
27 Eggleston, David J...... 2232 (1½) 0 - 1 Ledger, Andrew J........ 2411 (1½) 67 48
28 Collier, David O........ 2175 (1) 0 - 1 Hebden, Mark L.......... 2532 (1) 71 29
29 Devereaux, Maxim L...... 2377 (1) 0 - 1 Sarakauskiene, Zivile... 2158 (1) 53 73
30 Sahl, Bjarke............ 2364 (1) 1 - 0 Hutchinson, Norman A.... 2107 (1) 56 75
31 Werner, Gert............ 2069 (1) 0 - 1 Dworakowska, Joanna..... 2359 (1) 84 57
32 Quillan, Gary........... 2344 (1) 1 - 0 Fairbairn, Stephen...... 2088 (1) 62 80
33 Szieberth, Adam......... 2328 (1) 1 - 0 Lunn, Timothy........... 2079 (1) 64 81
34 Spence, David J......... 2205 (1) 1 - 0 Fabri, Henrik........... 1940 (1) 69 92
35 Majer, Chris E.......... 1991 (1) 0 - 1 Grant, Alan G........... 2193 (1) 87 70
36 Henderikse, Bert........ 2019 (½) ½ - ½ Walton, Alan J.......... 2222 (½) 86 68
37 Ormsby, Alan............ 1939 (½) 0 - 1 Groffen, Hans........... 2171 (½) 93 72
38 Fox, Anthony............ 2117 (½) 1 - 0 Henrichsen, Jens........ 2106 (½) 74 76
39 Savory, Richard J....... 2101 (½) ½ - ½ De Lagontrie, Jean...... 1974 (½) 77 88
40 Fraser-Mitchell, Jeremy 2077 (½) ½ - ½ Cafolla, Peter.......... 2062 (0) 82 85
41 Marks, Ian A............ 1944 (0) 0 - 1 Spanton, Tim R.......... 2075 (0) 91 83
42 Nicholson, John......... 1945 (0) 1 - 0 Depin, Jean 90
Monarch Assurance Isle of Man
Open
Venue: Ocean Castle Hotel Port Erin
Date: 23 Sep 06 to 01 Oct 06
Timings: First 40 moves in 120 mins. Next 20 moves in 60 mins. 30 mins to completion.
Tournament Director/Organiser:
Dennis Hemsley
3 Links Avenue, Port St Mary, Isle of Man IM9 5EY
tel. 44(0)1624 833742, fax 44(0)1624 833583
email
(for all enquiries about the tournament)
Official Website:
www.bcmchess.co.uk/monarch2006
Webmaster: John Saunders
Email:
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Main Sponsors
Monarch
Assurance plc
Head Office:
Manxonia House
Bay View Road
Port St Mary
Isle of Man IM9 5AE
Tel: +44 (0)1624 834903 Fax: +44 (0)1624 834921
As well as Monarch Assurance plc, the Tournament is sponsored by
The Isle of Man Department of Tourism,
and the Port Erin Commissioners.
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