The chess games in the 20th Maccabiah have reached their decisive stage when after 6 rounds both grandmaster groups see a sole leader, and yet with a close and open race. At the top group German GM Georg Meier is undefeated at the lead on 4.5/ 6. He has already played both top seed Moiseenko and Smirin, drawing both games. He could do even better against the Israeli:
Meier,Georg (2644) – Smirin,Ilia (2644)
Maccabiah20 Dan Hotel (5.2), 10.07.2017
41.Qh8+? [The 41st move syndrome? Correct was 41.Qg8! Qb6 (Or 41…g5 42.Qe6+ Kg7 43.Qxf5 Qb6 44.Qxg5+ Kf7 45.Qf5+ Kg7 46.Qd7+ Kf6 47.Qe6+ Kg7 48.Qe7+ Kg8 49.h4+-) 42.Qf8+ Ke5 43.Qg7+ Kf4 44.Qxg6 Ke5 45.Qg7+ Kf4 46.Qg3#] 41…Kf7 42.Qh7+ Kf6 43.Qd7? [For the second time 43.Qg8! was the missed opportunity.] 43…Qb6 44.Qe6+ ½–½
The two leaders – Georg Meier and Tal Baron
Meyer was half a point ahead of the highly successful runner- up, the French-Israeli Gabriel Battaglini –Flom whom he beat in round 4. The latter is still on the run for both the top honours as well as for the desirable grandmaster norm.
The standings following round 6: GM G. Meier (GER) 4.5; IM G. Flom (FRA) 4; GMs E. Rozentalis (LTU) & GM A. Moiseenko (UKR) 3.5 each; GMs I. Smirin (ISR) & S. Dvoirys (RUS) 3 each; IM E. Deutsch (ISR) & GM A. Huzman (ISR) 2.5 each; FM Y. Parkhov (ISR) 2; GM D. Klein (NED) 1.5.
Dutch GM David Klein is not really used to see the entire field ahead of him.
Here is one of the reasons:
Klein,David (2508) – Parkhov,Yair (2407)
Maccabiah20 Dan Hotel (4.1), 09.07.2017
41…Bxg3! 42. Kxg3 [Not 42.Re2 Rxe2 43.Qxe2 Rb8!µ] 42…Re8! 43. Qxe8? [Missing the counter blow 43.Rxf7+! Qxf7 44.Qxe8 Qxe8 45.Rxe8 Rxd3+ 46.Kg2 Rd2= with equality] 43…Rxd3+ 44.Kg2 Qf3+ 45.Kg1 Qxb7 46.Qe5+ Kh7 47.Qe4 Qxe4 48.Rxe4 Rd1+ 49.Kg2 Kg7 50.Kf3 [Or 50.Re5 d3 51.Re4 Rb1 52.Rd4 Rxb2 53.Kf3 f6 54.Rxa4 g5µ] 50…Rd2 Black has obtained a superior rook ending which he converted on move though not without difficulties. 0–1
In Grandmaster group B Israeli GM Tal Baron is undefeated at the lead with 4.5 points. The runners up are the young IM Alon Mindlin and the European ladies’ champion Ukrainian GM Anna Ushenina on 4, just half a point behind.
IM group A saw a joint lead of IM Michael Pasman and FM Shaked Tifferet (both Israel) on 4.5 each. Israeli IM Roman Bar was the sole leader of IM group B with 5 points ahead of IM David Kudischewitsch (RUS) 4.5 and IM Alexander Kaspi (Israel) 4.
Here is an elegant conclusion from IM group A:
Veinberg,Nimrod (2381) – Bitensky,Igor (2358)
Maccabiah20 Dan Hotel (5.14), 10.07.2017
32…Rxe3+! 33. Qxe3 gxf4+ 34.Qxf4 Qe1+ 35.Qf2 Be5+ 36.Kxh4 Qxf2+ 37.Kh5 Qe3 38.h4 Qxd3 0–1
98 players take part in the open section which was dominated by two Jerusalem players: Moshe Gal and Netanel Levi on 5.5 / 6 each. In the youth section in Nesher, nearby Haifa, 20 players from USA, Germany an Israel, Uruguay and Burundi take part. After 4 round Joseph Zeltsan is the sole leader with 3.5.
Sharansky’s simul
Our special guest on Tuesday was Natan Sharansky, the famous human rights activist and refusnik in the USSR during the seventies and eighties who spent 9 years in Soviet prisons and has made a rich political career in Israel starting from the nineties. Sharansky, since 2009 the chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency, was a chess prodigy and played in various local and national Soviet tournaments. He claims that Chess helped him to keep his sanity in solitary confinement as he used to play in his cell, without a chess set, thousands of games against himself and always won…
Yesterday he volunteered to give a simultaneous exhibition against 20 participants in the Maccabiah open competition. At the opening ceremony he was excited to meet two special guests: IM David Kudishevich with whom he had played at the time in youth championships in Belarus and Mr. Itzchak Lat from Berlin, the head of the German chess delegation here. Back on February 11, 1986 Mr. Lat attended the release of Saransk in a deal of spies’ exchanges that took place on Glienicke Bridge between East and West Berlin.
from left: IM David Kudishevich, Natan Sharansky and the Maccabiah organizer Moshe Slav
In the simul yesterday, that lasted some 3 hours and attracted quite a few viewers, Sharansky won 17 games and drew 3, against Jacob Berman (South Africa), Michael Volodarsky and Dan Zrihan.
Some more pictures – via facebook:
Sharansky simul:
Round 5:
Round 3:
Youth tournament (Haifa)