It's time to melt!

     Here I am- back to the "virtual life"!
     I haven't updated my blog for quite a long time and for no particular reason- not much inspiration left after playing chess daily I guess :))
     Many games and tournaments are behind and I am in Chisinau for a week or two, trying to relax before another month full of chess... It's unbelievable how hot it can be here- it feels like the global warming has become a huge issue- it's just crazy! I am stuck home, sitting under the AC, not tempting the fate by going out at 38 Celsius degrees...
     Anyhow, I have a lot to think about, the European Individual Women's Championship was very eventful. I had a lot of crazy games, wining positions which I lost and vice versa. I finished the tournament on the 20th place, being the 30+ seed, which was quite well, though not good enough to qualify to the World Cup (only 14 places were eligible for that).
     I played another rapid tournament and a classic one afterwards... My rating is getting again closer and closer to 2400, though never close enough :D I have already stopped checking it, though some extra conditions at tournaments have used to be quite a motivation. These Elo points get lost so quickly and never hurry to come back...
     I can't wait for the next chess marathon to begin! I will play in 3 nice Opens in Greece, 2 of them on Crete and another one in Kavala. Greek beaches are by far my favorites! I love drinking frappes under the umbrella and then going for a swim in the fantastically clear blue sea! I guess my skin color might change quite a lot this summer :D

Carpe Diem friends!

I urgently need another ice-cream to survive this day :D


xoxo from Chisinau ;)

Quarterfinals

     The World Cup is getting more and more interesting day by day!
     The quarterfinalists are: Evgeny Tomashevsky, Gata Kamsky, Dmitry Andreikin, Peter Svidler, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana, Vladimir Kramnik and Anton Korobov.
     There were many interesting games, fighted until the last drop of blood mini-matches (they can hardly  be called "mini" when the tie-breaks can offer a 7 games show).
     There was only one decisive game yesterday, Kramnik winning against Korobov.

Round 5

5.1

5.2

5.3

5.4

5.5

5.6

5.7

5.8

5.9

Total

Tomashevsky, Evgeny

½

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

0½

½

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

0½

Kamsky, Gata

Andreikin, Dmitry

½

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

0½

½

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

0½

Svidler, Peter

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime

½

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

0½

½

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

0½

Caruana, Fabiano

Kramnik, Vladimir

1

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

1

0

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

0

Korobov, Anton

   




























       As Korobov told himself, it was a big "suffering" game- it was very unpleasant to play with black and none of the moves that were played were easy.
     The ones I rooted for are already out, so from the ones who are left, I think that the favorites are Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler-who's the reigning FIDE World Cup Champion, having beaten Alexander Grischuk in the final in 2011.
     The 2nd classic game of the quarterfinals will be disputed today. You can follow it with live commentaries here: http://www.chessworldcup2013.com/live
     I hope for some more bloody battles!