CHESS

LAST weekend, 163 players took part in the City of Dublin tournament, where Chilean IM Valdes Escobar won the Masters with 4pts from 5. The next tournaments on the Irish calendar are the Irish Rapid and Blitz Championships (Sept 23-24) and St Andrew’s Charity Classic (Sept 29–Oct 1). Both events are in Dublin.

The World Chess Cup in Tbilisi has been a very interesting tournament so far, with great clashes between well-established players and rising stars. The former group has already suffered serious losses — Anand (2783) and Mamedyarov (2797) were knocked out in round two, while Nakamura (2792), Kramnik (2803), Caruana (2807) and Carlsen (2822) had to pack their bags after round three.

After four rounds, eight players are still in the race. One of them is Russian GM Fedoseev, who won the following nice game in round one: Black had to play 21...fxe5 22.dxe5 Bxb4 23.cxb4 Ncd4, but it was not easy to foresee White’s next move:

22.Nxg6!! Rxg6 23.Rxe6 Nh4 After 23...Rxe6 White would regain material with dividends — 24.Bxf5 Qf7 25.Bxe6 Qxe6 26.f5. 24.Bxg6 Nxg6 25.Rxf6 1–0