Konstantin Landa wins Third ACP tournament
08.06.2004 It was a bit of a surprise, since he was not a top seed. But the Russian GM who now lives in Germany had a great day and, with great tenacity and a bit of luck, he was able to clinch the Third ACP Internet Blitz Chess event, staged on the Playchess.com server and sponsored by ChinaCom. Final report.
Tournament home page
Finals
The finals of the Third ACP tournament ended this weekend with a bang. The
surprise winner was 32-year-old GM Konstantin Landa, who defeated top seed
Alexey Dreev, who was nominally 140 Elo points stronger on the FIDE lists.
The runners up behind Dreev were Peter Heine Nielsen and Sergey Karjakin, the
latter a 14-year-old GM from Ukraine.
List of qualifiers for the final
Name |
Elo |
Alexander Shabalov |
2624 |
Alexey Dreev |
2689 |
Anatoli Vaisser |
2573 |
Bartlomiej Macieja |
2633 |
Christian Bauer |
2595 |
Emanuel Berg |
2495 |
Evgenij Najer |
2606 |
Igor Glek |
2571 |
|
|
Name |
Elo |
Jan Gustafsson |
2579 |
Konstantin Landa |
2550 |
Laurent Fressinet |
2638 |
Mikhail Kobalia |
2630 |
Peter Heine Nielsen |
2628 |
Sergey Karjakin |
2580 |
Tigran Petrosian |
2539 |
Vladimir Baklan |
2615 |
|
The qualifiers were split into four groups of four players each. These played
matches of four games each against the three other participants in the groups.
The two highest scoring players proceeded to the knockout stage.
Group 1 was easily won by Alexey Dreev, who was victorious in all his matches.
The second place was closer, but in the end it was taken by a one-point advantage
by Evgenij Najer over Emanuel Berg.
Results Round one
Group 1 |
AD |
EN |
CH |
EB |
GP |
MP |
Alexey Dreev |
XXX |
2,5 |
3 |
3 |
8,5 |
6 |
Evgenij Najer |
1,5 |
XXX |
2,5 |
2 |
6 |
3 |
Christian Bauer |
1 |
1,5 |
XXX |
2 |
4,5 |
1 |
Emanuel Berg |
1 |
2 |
2 |
XXX |
5 |
2 |
In Group 2 was all Karjakin. The 14-year-old boy wonder finished every match
victoriously and was two and a half points ahead of the field. Behind him both
Fressinet and Baklan shared 5.5 points each, but since the former had won their
personal match with 2.5:1.5 it was Fressinet that went through to the next
round.
Group 2 |
LF |
VB |
SK |
TP |
GP |
MP |
Laurent Fressinet |
XXX |
2,5 |
1,5 |
1,5 |
5,5 |
2 |
Vladimir Baklan |
1,5 |
XXX |
1,5 |
2,5 |
5,5 |
2 |
Sergey Karjakin |
2,5 |
2,5 |
XXX |
3 |
8 |
6 |
Tigran Petrosian |
2,5 |
1,5 |
1 |
XXX |
5 |
2 |
Group three saw Konstantin Landa in great form. His score of 9.5/12 was the
best in the entire tournament, and the 4:0 against Jan Gustafsson a real surprise.
Second was Bartlomiej Macieja, who beat Gustafsson and Alexander Shabalov in
their individual matches.
Group 3 |
BM |
AS |
JG |
KL |
GP |
MP |
Bartlomiej Macieja |
XXX |
3 |
2,5 |
1 |
6,5 |
4 |
Alexander Shabalov |
1 |
XXX |
2,5 |
1,5 |
5 |
2 |
Jan Gustafsson |
1,5 |
1,5 |
XXX |
0 |
3 |
0 |
Konstantin Landa |
3 |
2,5 |
4 |
XXX |
9,5 |
6 |
Group 4 was dominated by the very strong Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen, who
scored 7.5/12 for an overall victory. Vaisser and Glek tied for second, but
since Glek had won the individual match it was he who qualified. However due
to a regular tournament he was scheduled to play in he could not appear for
the quarterfinals and was replaced by Anatoli Vaisser.
Group 4 |
MK |
PHN |
AV |
IG |
GP |
MP |
Mikhail Kobalia |
XXX |
2 |
0 |
1,5 |
3,5 |
1 |
Peter Heine Nielsen |
2 |
XXX |
3 |
2,5 |
7,5 |
5 |
Anatoli Vaisser |
4 |
1 |
XXX |
1,5 |
6,5 |
2 |
Igor Glek |
2,5 |
1,5 |
2,5 |
XXX |
6,5 |
4 |
Quarterfinals
In the quarterfinals Dreev, Karjakin and Landa scored clear wins in their
four-game matches, while Peter Heine Nielsen had to settle it in a tiebreak
against Evgenij Najer.
Alexey Dreev |
3-1
|
Anatoli Vaisser |
Peter Heine Nielsen |
3-2 |
Evgenij Najer |
Sergey Karjakin |
2,5-1,5 |
Bartlomiej Macieja |
Konstantin Landa |
2,5-1,5 |
Laurent Fressinet |
Semifinals
The second-last phase of the tournament was extremely exciting and saw Alexei
Dreev win 3:1 against Peter Heine Nielsen. Dreev displayed extraordinary endgame
finesse. In the other match Konstantin Landa was able to defeat the spectators'
favourite Sergey Karjakin, who took the defeat in his stride and chatted a
while with the audience.
Alexey Dreev |
3-1 |
Peter Heine Nielsen |
Sergey Karjakin |
0,5-2,5 |
Konstantin Landa |
Final
In the Final Alexey Dreev was the clear favourite, and in the first game it
looked as though everything was going to go in the expected direction, Dreev
winning in just 23 moves. In the second game he was in big trouble, but a very
tenacious defence led to a draw in 83 moves. In the third game with white he
had the chance to clinch the tournament, but Landa was able to create tactical
complications, exchange bishops and win a pawn. Dreev seemed a bit stunned
and did not defend well, allowing Landa to win and pull even.
Suddenly it was Konstantin Landa, playing with the white pieces, who was the
favourite to win. But Dreev easily equalised in the fourth game and could have
held it to a draw. However the Muscovite wanted more and in his attempts to
win he weakened his position. Landa won the game and the match.
Alexey Dreev |
1,5-2,5
|
Konstantin Landa |
We
congratulate Konstantin Landa for his very fine victory. Our anti-cheating
software has revealed that it is highly unlikely that he used any computer
assistance. Landa played like a human grandmaster on a very good day. I personally
overlooked the checking of the games, and warn skeptics about a tendency to treat
any victory by a player who is not the top seed as cheating. Is it not so that
regular tournaments also see surprise winner playing extremely well on a given
day. Landa's games were neither "engine-like" to any degree that
could arouse suspicion, and the tactical soundness of his games remained within
the normal GM range, even if you ignored the three worst games (under the assumption
he had purposely blundered in these to muddy the picture). Konstantin's blunder
value was almost identical with that of Jan Gustafsson in the first round.
We wish to congratulate Konstantin Landa on his great victory in the third
ACP Internet tournament. We also wish to thank ChessBase for staging it, and
ChinaCom for providing the prize money. The ACP of course is the initiator
and organiser, and we hope to see many more exciting events of this kind on
the Internet.
Martin Fischer, tournament director
Prizes
Winner |
$1,800 |
Runner-Up |
$1,200 |
Semi-finalists |
$600 each |
Quarterfinalists |
$300 each |
Places 9 to 16 |
$100 each |
Links
|