The winter is coming

 

In Pühajarve at the last weekend of November was held the strongest handicap tournament ever. It was 17th in a row thanks to the former Estonian PM Mr. Tiit Vahi. The venue was as usual the Pühajarve Spa.

This year 12 grandmasters were among participants. Previous winner Alexei Shirov was a clear favorite and he won again. The tournament schedule was 35 games in three days. On the second day there were in total 20 rounds. Shirov might consider himself as a veteran, but yours truly and other GM-s who may participate already in the official senior World championship were not up to the task.

Still all the players had their bright moments. The field was impressive not only because of the chess legends like Robert Hübner or Alexander Beljavsky with whom I already played nearly 30 years ago.  Young players like Swedesh champion Erik Blomquist and Estonian hope Ottomar Ladva were among favorites as well. The time control was 20 minutes which was devided among players relative to their group. Weakest players had 18 minutes againts grandmasters. There were no increment and in some games the two minutes left for the stronger player was not enough. The tournament spirit was friendly and nobody complained, so the arbiters had an easy job.

In the next game Shirov worked nicely with his queen and knight.

Because of the time control a lot of mistakes were made even by very strong players.

Kovalenko tried too hard against Shirov and lost in time in the winning position.

However Kovalenko was lucky in the next game.

My best game was probably next one.

Külaots showed good preparation in the following game.

Ottomar Ladva had a good training opportunity, however he was not satisfied with his result. Too many blunders in winning positions.

His best game was against Beljavsky.

The final results of the tournament are here.

 

Jaan Ehlvest