Ivanchuk in a bad mood or how he won the Latvian Railway Open
02/04/2025The Riga Railway Open in rapid chess took place in the last weekend of March. Many strong GM-s were participating, but the result of the winner Ivanchuk made headlines. At the end he managed to get 13 points out of 14. Reminds Fischer in his best days. In the closing ceremony Alexei Shirov mentioned that Ivanchuk instead of playing in candidates tournament which just finished in Khanty Mansisk preferred Riga. Vassily Ivanchuk was one of the World best players in last 25 years, but never won the World champion title. Most likely because of his bad nerves. This time he was not even among the candidates. However he put his anger and revenge onto his opponents in Riga. He won first 9 games and only in last day allowed two draws. Still in his second round encounter things might be different if this time local hero Normunds Miezes could controll his nerves in winning position.
