King's Tournament

     A very eventful day is behind!
     The first round of the match has proven to be very interesting, though a bit unlucky for the Romanian team, but I'll get to this part a bit later.
     The organization has really impressed me- a very nice playing hall, a big screen with the live games, commentator's room (you can follow the live commentary on playchess) with press-conferences with the players, great snacks, tea,coffee (tasted and approved by me :D ). I envy a little bit the players.
     I tried to do a new thing, I made some notes with my thoughts about the games, which I wrote while kibitzing them. Here they are:

     Game nr. 1: Lu Shanglei- Lupulescu Constantin

     Opening: Vey solid preparation by both players. It looks like both players have analysed everything until the very drawish rook endgame.


      Game nr. 2: Nevednichy Vladislav- Wei Yi

      Opening: Black looks confident in a Rossolimo with 4...bc. The players had the same varioation in the yesterday's blitz game. It looks to me that black has solved his opening problems. Wei Yi used to play Najdorf and Dragon before, I guess that 2...Nc6 is special preparation for today's game.

      Middlegame: The opening battle is clearly won by the young Wei Yi, black has a 50 minutes time advantage, as well as a better position. It looks like the knight on "e5"is very unstable and it is more of a target than a well-placed piece. Black's got the pair of bishops and unless white will be able to take control of the vital black squares "e5" and "c5", the threat of a potential dynamic center along with the pair of bishops might become difficult to fight against.

     Game nr. 3:  Wang Yue- Jianu Vlad

     Opening: Black has got an interesting position after the opening. His main idea is to apply pressure on the white's advanced center pawns, speculating ideas with "b5" and "e6", exploiting the position of his knight on "a5" and the bishop on "g7". Looks like an interesting battle is ahead.

     Middlegame: I think that this position was not specifically prepared for today by any of the players. Black took a very debatable decision with his 12th move "bxc4", defining the pawn structure. The main continuations were "e6", "e5" and "Bh6". I think that this decision has limited greatly his chances of creating counter play  and the knight on "a5" has become a miss-placed piece. It looks like will have to solve some serious problems in this game.

     Game nr. 4: Parligras Mircea- Ni Hua

     Opening: It looks like white applies a bit of pressure. More time and a better piece coordination might be some of the premises of a slight advantage.

     Endgame: A very pleasant endgame for white has arisen. Mircea has got a big time advantage as well, though it might be not that significant on this stage of the game. It looks like black will have to solve some problems in his way of seeking equalization.

      Here are the final results:

Bo.	1	China	Rtg	-	2	Romania	Rtg	3 : 1
1.1	GM	Lu, Shanglei	2566	-	GM	Lupulescu, Constantin	2643	½ - ½
1.2	GM	Wei, Yi	2649	-	GM	Nevednichy, Vladislav	2563	1 - 0
1.3	GM	Wang, Yue	2711	-	GM	Jianu, Vlad-Cristian	2588	1 - 0
1.4	GM	Ni, Hua	2677	-	GM	Parligras, Mircea-Emilian	2594	½ - ½

     Here you can see some photos I took:

     Will keep you posted!


xoxo from Medias ;)

Chinese Wall vs Romanian Stake

     I am very happy to announce that an exquisite event will take place in Romania very soon, starting on the 22nd of November!
     The traditional "King's Tournament" came with a new format- a 4 games match between the best Romanian and Chinese players. The last ones happen to be the reigning Olympic Champions! The match will be foregone by a blitz tournament, where in addition to the 8 GMs our most promising juniors- IM Deac Bogdan (2385) and FM Costachi Mihnea (2382) will compete .
     It is going to be a very interesting match to follow and I am happy that I will be able to do it live! The Chinese team is no doubt very strong and a bit younger, with the reigning World Junior Champion in the team composition- GM Lu Shanglei (2566).

GM Lu Shanglei

     The other 3 players are in the composition of the Olympic Golden Team- Wang Yue (2711), Ni Hua (2677) and Wei Yi (2649).

GM Ni Hua

GM Wang Yue

GM Wei Yi

     The "Romanian Stake" will be represented by: GM Constantin Lupulescu (2643) who constanly qualifies for World Cup and shows fantastic results at the European Championships, GM Mircea Parligras (2594), GM Vlad Jianu (2588) and GM Vladislav Nevednichy (2563).

GM Constantin Lupulescu

GM Mircea Parligras

GM Vlad Jianu

GM Vladislav Nevednichy

     The event will take place in Medias- a very rustic Romanian city, as you can see bellow:

     I will be more than happy to deliver impressions as well as reports from the place of the event and let the best team win!



xoxo from the board of the "Romanian Stake" team ;)

Yerevan

     Here I am , in Yerevan- at the European Individual Chess Championship- the tournament that opens this year's chess season for me.
     I like playing the Men's Europeans, as it is the strongest tournament I play every year and there is absolutely no pressure on me, thought it doesn't mean that I don't put some by myself :D
     I've missed chess, as I haven't played for 2 and a half months and the trip to Yerevan has been a very awaited one. It is my first time in Armenia and I like it- everything has been great so far- the food, the hotel, the receipt. I hope that it will continue this way ;)
     The first round starts tomorrow, at 3 pm local time. Here is the official site, where you can find all the information about the tournament, as well as the live games and photo reports: http://eicc2014.am/  I expect to have a very strong opponent tomorrow, as I am nr.167 out of 259  http://chess-results.com/tnr123081.aspx?lan=11&zeilen=99999
     I hope to play some good games and to show my best chess!
     Romania is represented by 7 players here:

46	GM	Lupulescu Constantin	1207822	ROU	2643
74	GM	Nevednichy Vladislav	1205730	ROU	2591
85	GM	Jianu Vlad-Cristian	1208110	ROU	2574
88	GM	Parligras Mircea-Emilian	1204297	ROU	2572
167	IM	Bulmaga Irina	13903063	ROU	2375
188		Deac Bogdan-Daniel	1226380	ROU	2322
252		Porfireanu Serban	1208632	ROU	1903

     I wish them all the best of luck (including myself :D ) !
     Here are some photos from my today's walk through the center of Yerevan:

Seems like chess is a tradition around here

With Mircea Parligras and Constantin Lupulescu

     Will keep you posted!

xoxo from Yerevan  ;)

     

Back to life

     I am back in Chisinau. I arrived yesterday, at about 4pm and slept until today :))) Yeah, the tournament was really exhausting for me.
     We finished on the 12th place, while being 10th in the starting list. The result is far from being called a success, but if to think that with one more draw (if I would have made a draw) in the last round, we would have taken the 6th place, one could understand how tense was everything until the very last moment.
     I ended the tournament on 50 % (4,5p/9) and some -3 Elo points.
     The best result by far in our team showed Alina l'Ami, who was in a very good form! You can see the statisctics here:

12. Romania (RtgAvg:2358, Captain: Szabo Gergely-Andras-Gyula / TB1: 10 / TB2: 175.5)
Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Pts.	Games	RtgAvg	Rp	w	we	w-we	K	rtg+/-
1	IM	Bulmaga Irina	2399	ROU	1	0	0	1	½	0	1	1	0	4.5	9	2367	2367	4.5	4.83	-0.33	10	-3.3
2	WGM	L'ami Alina	2361	ROU		½	1	½	1	½	1	1	½	6.0	8	2298	2491	6	4.55	1.45	15	21.8
3	IM	Foisor Cristina-Adela	2347	ROU	1	1	0	½	0		1	1	½	5.0	8	2247	2342	5	4.81	0.19	10	1.9
4	WGM	Cosma Elena-Luminita	2326	ROU	1	½		1	½	1	½		½	5.0	7	2197	2355	5	4.50	0.50	10	5.0
5	WGM	Voicu-Jagodzinsky Carmen	2275	ROU	1		½			0		½		2.0	4	2236	2236	2	2.16	-0.16	15	-2.4

     The tournament was won by the Ukraine's team, followed by the Russian and Polish ones.

Alina l'Ami, 6p/8

Luminita Cosma, 5p/7

Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky, 2p/4

Cristina Foisor, 5p/8

and me with 4,5p/9

     In the men's section, our team showed a great fighting spirit and finished on the 14th place, being 19th on the starting ranking list. Here are the statistics:

14. ROMANIA (RtgAvg:2590, TB1: 10 / TB2: 159.5)
Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	ID	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Pts.	Games	RtgAvg	Rp	w	we	w-we	K	rtg+/-
1	GM	LUPULESCU Constantin	2630	ROU	0	1	½	½	1	1	0	½	½	0	5.0	9	2634	2677	5	4.44	0.56	10	5.6
2	GM	JIANU Vlad-Cristian	2565	ROU	0	1	½	0	½		½	0	1	½	4.0	8	2567	2567	4	3.93	0.07	10	0.7
3	GM	PARLIGRAS Mircea-Emilian	2576	ROU	0	1	½	½	½	½	½	½	1	½	5.5	9	2523	2603	5.5	4.97	0.53	10	5.3
4	GM	NEVEDNICHY Vladislav	2590	ROU	0	1	½	1	1	0	½	½	1	1	6.5	9	2514	2680	6.5	5.14	1.36	10	13.6
5	GM	SZABO Gergely-Andras-Gyula	2548	ROU	0					½					0.5	1	2666	0	0.5	0.34	0.16	10	1.6

   
     Their best result in this tournament was the 2-2 with Ukraine! The next round they played against Russia and they were really close to a miracle, with Mircea Parligras and Vladislav Nevednichy pushing for a win. They lost the match eventually, but this didn't get them any lower in our eyes!

Mircea Parligras, 5,5p/9

Vladislav Nevednichy, 6,5p/9

Vlad Jianu, 4p/8

Constantin Lupulescu, 5p/9

and both our Captain and reserve player in the men's team- Gergely Szabo, whom we let to play only 1 game, in which he successfully made a draw vs the Ukraine's -Fedorchuk

     The tournament was won by the Azerbaijan team, followed by the French and Russian ones.
      I will stay home for now and learn for my partial exams at the University and try to pass them :D My next tournament will be the Romanian rapid, blitz and solving Women Championship, which will start at the beginning of December.

xoxo from Chisinau ;)

Grand Sweden

     Hello my dear readers!
     I've been relaxing the last few days, not even opening my computer. It's been soooo good to go to the beach and not worry about anything but my tan :D
     My session at the University was so exhausting- I needed some refuel and I definitely got it.
     I spent some quality time with my family and my friends in Golden Sands and I enjoyed the unusual role of being just a spectator of the "Golden Sands Grand Europe Open".

With my dear sister- Elena

With my good friend- Diana Baciu

Elena and me

Olga Hincu, Diana Baciu, Irene Sukandar, Elena Bulmaga, Ioana Gelip and me (from left to right)  trying the chilly water

     Nils Grandelius of Sweden won the tournament with a 7,5p/9, 2706 performance and a very nice +17,5 Elo points! If he couldn't take the Bulgarian hot weather with him in Sweden- he definitely compensated it with some nice amount of cash- 6000 euros! How much sun can he buy with it, what do you think?

     Here's my photo report from there:

Nils Grandelius- the winner of the tournament

Dragan Solak-6th place with 6,5p

Vladislav Nevednichy- 3rd place with 7p

Mircea Parligras

Alin Berescu

Dmitrii Svetushkin

Natalia Pogonina-2nd woman prize with 5,5p

Axel Rombaldoni

Tiberiu Georgescu

Nisha Mohota

Bogdan Posedaru

Irina Ionescu

Irene Sukandar

Angela Dragomirescu

Maria Velcheva

Zura Javakhadze

Levente Vajda

Zbynek Hracek- 2nd place with 7p

     The playing hall was really impressive- it was provided by one of the best 5 stars hotel and casino in Golden Sands. The organizers did a very good job and I think that it was one of the strongest and with the highest prizes Open that one could find in June in Europe!

     

     As about me, I really enjoyed my short holliday and I'm going to prepare for my next tournaments in the following week- Turkish League, Universiade, EIWCC... I hope to have a great summer and to show some serious results!

Wish you all an amazing summer! 

Will keep you posted ;)