Restless Optimism

Dear readers,

The busiest time of the year is starting for me these days. Many important tournaments are ahead, many interesting trips.

The first stop is at the Batumi Chess Olympiad (24 Sept - 5 Oct). As a team event, one where I represent my country, there is definitely some pressure on me, especially as I will be playing board 1 for Romania. Nothing's as motivating as a good challenge though and I can't wait for some big battles! (Check up my FB pages for updates during the tournament).

It is interesting to notice how years pass and I expect my eagerness to play chess to moderate somehow, but no, it doesn't matter that it's my 6th Olympiad already, I am still very much looking forward to it! Let's see what plans Batumi has on us...

Memory from the Baku Chess Olympiad in 2016, with Luminita Cosma, Cristina Foisor, me,

Ciprian Nanu and Corina Peptan. 

Next to follow is a quite unique tournament in Norway, Harstad (yeah, far North I head from the sunny Batumi). There will be 7 games, 3 rapids and 4 classical ones. I might even give some simul on one of the days, maybe even blindfold. I expect this trip to be very interesting. Anyhow, the Tromso Olympiad (2014) has left only good memories for me so I am quite optimistic about my return to Norway. 10-16 October is reserved for it.

Me, giving a blindfold simul

After no longer than 3 days of rest I will be heading to Isle of Man. It's been my dream to play there for quite some time and I am really excited about finally being able to make it happen! Being one of the strongest chess opens ever, names like Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, Levon Aronian and Wesley So are on the starting list and I can't be any happier about the chance to play in the same tournament with them and maybe even meet them at the chess board! (My optimism is restless lately...)

Yeah, this is how my end of September and whole October looks like.


It is probably too little to say that I am very grateful for the chance life has given me- to do what I love the most and to call it work!



Wish you all a nice end of week and remember, it is never too late for a dream to come true!

The other Side of a Medal

     The last time I wrote was just before the beginning of the Olympiad and since then a lot of things have happened.
     Our team was very unlucky in some crucial matches and unfortunately we weren't able to repeat our success from 2012, when we took the 5th place. We finished 11th this year.
     Despite our not fantastic play, I had a rather good tournament, winning the bronze medal on the 4th board with the score of 8p/10.

     Someone knowing me a bit would know how much I wanted to add to my collection a worthy medal and how hard I've tried during the last years in order to get it. Though it came as a big surprise to me ( I didn't expect to get it after I lost one game) I can't say that I was not happy about it. After all, show me a sportsman who would win an Olympic medal and won't be happy (maybe only Plushenko with silver)...
     So what is the point of writing all of this? Well, I will tell- some important to me people were telling me during the last half year: " You don't have any worthy results", "you play rather bad", well, now- here it is- a result ( Olympic must be worthy, right?)- and no one seems to care or to notice.
     What can I say?




 The more years pass, the more I get disappointed in people.

P.S. I am at the Turkish League now, where I hope to play well, but not for anyone else, just for myself, because it seems that's how it works- one should be only for himself.


xoxo from Turkey :)

The northest North

     Here it is- the northest North- Tromsø.
     Once I got out of the airport the unusual air just hit me, I have never thought that I could actually  feel such a difference in matter of breathing. How to explain... Breathing is not a necessity, it is a great pleasure here. I feel that right now- my lungs are absolutely in love with Tromsø :)))
     We arrived yesterday, in the evening, if to admit that "evenings" exist here too... The arctic nights in summer- you know what it means? It means 21 hours of daylight per day :)) Quite cool, huh?! Though one might find it difficult to sleep in such conditions- I slept like a baby- my best sleep since like... ever :)

    I am very happy to be here and as everyone else in Tromsø, can't wait for the Olympiad to start!    Our women's team is the 6th in the starting ranking list: 

Team-Starting rank

No.		Team	Team	RtgAvg
1		CHN	China	2549
2		RUS	Russia	2520
3		UKR	Ukraine	2510
4		GEO	Georgia	2499
5		IND	India	2421
6		ROU	Romania	2407
7		USA	United States of America	2405
8		POL	Poland	2402
9		FRA	France	2390
10		ARM	Armenia	2383

and we have a very nice team:

Bo.		Name	Rtg
1	IM	PEPTAN Corina-Isabela	2422
2	WGM	L'AMI Alina	2446
3	IM	FOISOR Cristina-Adela	2404
4	IM	BULMAGA Irina	2354
5	WGM	COSMA Elena-Luminita	2327

     The men's team is the 32 nd in the starting ranking list, but one must not fool himself- they were 8th at the last Olympiad :)

Bo.		Name	Rtg
1	GM	LUPULESCU Constantin	2625
2	GM	VAJDA Levente	2561
3	GM	JIANU Vlad-Cristian	2579
4	GM	PARLIGRAS Mircea-Emilian	2574
5	GM	NEVEDNICHY Vladislav	2554

			Follow our results on : http://chess-results.com/tnr140381.aspx?lan=1&art=0&flag=30&wi=821 and keep updated with the latest news from the Olympiad on the official site of the event: https://chess24.com/en/olympiad2014
xoxo from Tromso ;)

Gigantic Suitcase

     A great period will start for me soon, one which I can't wait to begin!
     I haven't played chess so much lately, my last tournament was somewhere in the middle of May... I was caught with lots of exams at University (don't mean to gloat- but I passed all of them and now-I'm officially in my last year of Uni  :D ).
     A difficult task is now to be solved- how to pack a suitcase for 2 months? :))) I will go to the EIWCC in Plovdiv on the 4th of July, then a little vacation in Greece, after that- Olympiad and Turkish League, and I will be back home in September :D  The difficult part about it is that the Olympiad will be held in Norway, Tromsø, where it's more an early spring than a real summer in August.
     I've really missed traveling non-stop and playing strong tournaments... I have missed my chess friends, I have missed the tournament atmosphere! I guess you can feel my enthusiasm about the forthcoming months :)
     All in all, I am very optimistic about everything and I am really thankful for the opportunity of having such an amazing life as a chess player!


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!