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 ;)
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