After round one of the 2008 North American Open it looks like we’ll have a new winner this year as it appears GM Hikaru Nakamura has decided to skip the event while IM David Pruess lost his first game on a horrendous blunder.
Position after 20…fxe6
In the above position against FM Tom Brownscombe, Pruess blundered with 21.Nd3?? which loses at least a piece to 21…Qd5. Not exactly the best start for the current joint Champion.
There are eight GMs who have decided to play in the 4-day schedule. GMs Yury Shulman, Varuzhan Akobian, Melikset Khachiyan, Julio Becerra and Anatoly Lein will be the best known players to the majority of American fans although GMs Giorgi Kacheishvili and Dashzeveg Sharavdorj also make several appearances on the US chess scene. GM Slarko Cicak from Sweden is fairly unknown to most of us here onsite although a couple of the GMs know of him.
A couple of GMs found the going tough against their lower rated opposition as Becerra gave up a half-point to fellow Floridian, Eric Moskow while Akobian was also made to work extremely hard for his half-point against a determined Steven Zierk who kept him here for the majority of the night successfully saving a pawn down position.
Zierk, playing white on board 2 in front of a captive audience, came up with the following combination.
Position after 12…dxe5
Here Zierk played 13.Bxg6!? and play continued 13…fxg6 14.fxe5 g5 15.exf6 Nxf6 16.Bg3 b4 17.Qxd8 Rxd8 18.Be5 bxc3 19.Bxf6 cxb2 20.Rab1 Ba6 21.Rf2 Bxf6 22.Rxf6
Position after 22.Rxf6
Here Akobian missed a chance and played 23…Rf8. However, 23…Be2! leads to a win with the threat of Rd1+, e.g. 24.Rxb2 Rd1+ 25.Kf2 Rf1+ or 24.Rxc6 Rd1+ 25.Rxd1 Bxd1 26.Nd2 Re8 and the rook reaches e2 with devastating effect.
The game continued until the following ending was reached, although Akobian at this stage had about 5 seconds remaining for the rest of the game.
Position after 62.Ne2
Here Akobian thought he had found the breakthrough by playing 62…c3 which allows the black king access to the white pawn on a3. However, Zierk found the great plan of getting his king into the a1 corner and then eventually sacrificed his knight for black’s g4 pawn, leaving Akobian with a rook pawn and the wrong bishop needed to promote it.
Tomorrow’s games in the main schedule begin at 10:00 am and 5:00 pm PST, while the 3-day schedule also begins at 5:00 pm. As a note for those interested in the GM count, I’ve seen GMs Nikola Mitkov, Alex Shabalov and Jaan Ehlvest all walking about the hotel and so hopefully they are here for chess and not the gambling!
Great coverage of the tournament so far. I’m looking forward to seeing the standings. I especially enjoy the Monroi live games and also the replay games. Anyone who hasn’t used it yet should.