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| Reports by Rod McShane (also at:
http://icechess.com/Hrokur2003/reports.php):
Round 5 February 22, 2003 Round 5 of the Category XV Stormot Hroksins tournament in Reykjavik saw the first major upset of the event when Viktor Korchnoi beat Mickey Adams for the first time ever. Only three players now remain unbeaten. Shirov is the lone leader with 3/4, with Ivan Sokolov and Bartlomiej Macieja half a point behind in joint second place. Shirov consolidated his lead with a win over IM Stefan Kristjansson with Black. Kristjansson reached a reasonable position against Shirov in a Scotch until his 20.Ne3 which at the time even Alexei thought was a reasonable move. It appears that instead after 20.Rae1 White´s position is fine. Gretarsson-Sokolov ended in a draw after complete liquidation of material. Said Ivan, "Helgi was obviously not familiar with the variation and I got the upper hand quite quickly. It´s rather difficult to say whether I missed a forced win. Instead of 27...Ra3, 27...Rh5 was rather interesting but I rejected it on the grounds that White might play 28.Kc3 Rxh2 29.c5 and create counterplay - but after the game I couldn´t find any counterplay. After 27...Ra3 he played 28.Kc1 (the only move) a move I underestimated. The second interesting moment was when I played 29...Rh5. I should have played 29...Rf5 followed by g5 and White gets rather good winning chances. After that there there was not much to be done." In Bacrot-Macieja, according to Bacrot, "Bartek sacrificed the exchange at a good moment to reach a complicated position and he eventually managed to equalise for the draw." Mickey Adams´s very high plus score against Viktor the Terrible took a dent yesterday. According to both Shirov and Sokolov, the result was due to a combination offactors - Mickey, as he occasionally does, overpressed with the black pieces and missed something while Korchnoi played a fine game in which Adams had to give up his queen for rook and knight. With White´s unstoppable passed pawn the Englander´s eventual resignation was inevitable. Finally, McShane-Stefansson was a one-sided affair. The game followd a long line of Ruy Lopez theory before a series of bad moves by Hannes - 24...a5, 25...Qe7 and 26...Rxa5 enabled Luke to create a number of unstoppable threats to notch up his first win against the Icelandic champion. Tomorrow is the rest day, but for many of the players it will be business as usual as they turn up at Reykjavik Art Museum for simuls and other demonstration games in a Chess Festival involving several hundred of Iceland´s chess hungry children. |
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| All material © Mark Crowther |
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