Life miniature

     I am so lucky that I have chess...

     Whenever I am disappointed of myself I just think- "Tomorrow's gonna' be a new round".

     Every game is a little life miniature. You can start from zero again and again; you can try a new variation; you can see what's going to happen if you make a move you were always afraid to do; you can risk- there's no place for fear in chess- it's not like everything summs to one game- unlike in life- where you don't get the chance to improve a bad move you made in your previous game.

     It is a free day today in Kazan and it's going to be a double round again tomorrow. It was good to have some rest- I had a fantastic 12h sleep :))) 

     Anastasia Bodnaruk is leading the tournament after 6 rounds, with 5,5p, being followed by 3 players with 5p- Ju Wenjun, Zhao Xue and Rogule Laura. I've got 4,5p, as well as Sopiko Guramishvili, Anastasia Savina and Alina Kashlinskaya.

     I play against Sopiko tomorrow. It is quite funny-we play for the 2nd time against each other in the last 10 days :))) 

     Here are some more photos we took these days:

Raluca Sgircea and Tiberiu Georgescu

Tiberiu Georgescu

Teodor Anton

Raluca Sgircea

Raluca vs Olga Girya

     Wish you all to have a great weekend!

xoxo from Kazan ;)

Vitiugov takes it all

    The Gibraltar Tradewise Chess Festival ended yesterday. It was an exciting last round, followed by an even more exciting play-off.

1	9	GM	Vitiugov Nikita	2694	7½	½ - ½	7½	GM	Vachier-Lagrave Maxime	2711	5
2	6	GM	Navara David	2710	7	½ - ½	7½	GM	Short Nigel D	2690	10
3	30	GM	Zhao Xue	2554	7	½ - ½	7	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	2758	1
4	16	GM	Georgiev Kiril	2643	7	½ - ½	7	GM	Adams Michael	2725	3
5	8	GM	Le Quang Liem	2705	7	0 - 1	7	GM	Sandipan Chanda	2590	24

Here's the Vitiugov-Vachier-Lagrave draw:

The Regulations of the tournament said that if there was to be a tie for the 1st place, the players must play a blitz play-off (10m +5s each). So, Nigel Short, Sandipan Chanda, Vitiugov Nikita and Vachier-Lagrave Maxime ( all scoring 8p out of 10) played a mini-ko. Short won against Sandipan and Vitiugov against Vachier-Lagrave. Once more, Short had to play a play-off for the 1st place- like the lat year- when he beated Hou Yifan and took the 1st prize. The luck wasn't on his side this time and he lost against Vitiugov with a 1,5-0,5 score.

Nikita Vitiugov-The winner of Gibraltar

    Zhao Xue took the 1st women's prize, scoring an impressive 7,5p out of 10, making a draw against Ivanchuk in the last round.

    Congratulations to the winners and I hope I'll manage to play in Gibraltar next year too! ;)