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!

Squirrels attacking

     Half of the tournament has already passed in no time...

     We had a double round yesterday, in which I scored just 1p, losing the morning round. I am on 50 % now- a modest result which I hope to improve in the second part of the tournament.

      Here you can follow the results: http://www.londonchessclassic.com/womens_invitational_2013.htm

Rank	Name	Flags	Score	Fed.	M/F	Rating	TPR	W-We	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1	IM Ciuksyte, Dagne		4.0	ENG	F	2345	2481	+0.83	1	½	1	1	½
2	IM Bulmaga, Irina		2.5	ROU	F	2396	2230	-1.05	0	½	1	0	1
3	WIM Foisor, Mihaela-Veronica		2.5	ROU	F	2216	2344	+0.67	1	1	0		½
4	WGM Nadig, Kruttika		2.5	IND	F	2127	2284	+1.00	0	½	½	1	½
5	WIM Fuchs, Judith		2.0	GER	F	2337	2249	-0.45	1	½	½		0
6	WFM Hegarty, Sarah N		0.5	ENG	F	2127	1918	-1.00	0	0	0	0	½

     Unfortunately, there's no life broadcast of the games, but it's possible to download them in ".pgn" format from the home page of the tournament.

     There's a lot of interesting stuff going on at the London Chess Classic Festival. 

     A rapid super tournament starts today, where stars like Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Vishy Anand, Boris Gelfand, Fabiano Caruana, Judit Polgar, Nigel Short and others will play. The interesting thing about it is that the first 2 players leading the Open tournament after 4 rounds have qualified to this star tourn as well; they are Andrei Istratescu and Emil Sutovsky.

Wednesday 11th December
Round 1
14:00	Group A	Luke McShane	-	Vishy Anand	Andrei Istratescu	-	Michael Adams
	Group B	Vladimir Kramnik	-	Peter Svidler	Jonathan Rowson	-	Matthew Sadler
15:30	Group C	Boris Gelfand	-	Judit Polgar	Gawain Jones	-	Hikaru Nakamura
	Group D	Nigel Short	-	David Howell	Fabiano Caruana	-	Emil Sutovsky
Round 2
18:00	Group A	Vishy Anand	-	Michael Adams	Luke McShane	-	Andrei Istratescu
	Group B	Peter Svidler	-	Matthew Sadler	Vladimir Kramnik	-	Jonathan Rowson
19:30	Group C	Judit Polgar	-	Hikaru Nakamura	Boris Gelfand	-	Gawain Jones
	Group D	David Howell	-	Emil Sutovsky	Nigel Short	-	Fabiano Caruana

Andrei Istratescu, qualified to the Top 16 tournament thanks to scoring 4p/4 in the Open section

Rank	Name	Flags	Score	Fed.	M/F	Rating	TPR	W-We	1	2	3	4
1	GM Istratescu, Andrei		4.0	FRA	M	2670	3123	+0.69	1	1	1	1
2	GM Sutovsky, Emil		4.0	ISR	M	2657	3101	+0.64	1	1	1	1
3	GM Grachev, Boris		3.5	RUS	M	2669	2666	-0.01	1	1	½	1
4	GM Iordachescu, Viorel		3.5	MDA	M	2614	2681	+0.24	1	1	½	1
5	GM Hammer, Jon Ludvig		3.5	NOR	M	2612	2665	+0.18	1	1	1	½
6	GM Brunello, Sabino		3.5	ITA	M	2603	2651	+0.17	1	1	½	1
7	IM Bok, Benjamin		3.5	NED	M	2540	2614	+0.27	1	1	1	½
8	IM Semcesen, Daniel		3.5	SWE	M	2488	2578	+0.34	1	1	½	1
9	IM Cox, John J		3.5	ENG	M	2382	2968	+1.03	1	1	1	=
10	IM Slavin, Alexey		3.5	RUS	M	2363	2650	+1.35	1	1	1	½

     I wish Andrei success and let's hope for some amazing chess! You can follow the games and the live stream here: http://www.londonchessclassic.com/index.htm

    As about me, I am having some quality time in London and yesterday I finally managed to play a good game. You can see it here:

    Here are some photos taken from the last couple of days:

Squirrels attacking people :)))

The mighty pelicans

The beautiful "Hyde Park"

     Keep tuned for updates!

xoxo from London! ;)

Russian Superfinal

Baira Kovanova

     It is very good to be home, though I've already started missing the tournament atmosphere ;)
     This last week was more about familly, relaxing and just having a good time.
     There are several interesting tournaments to follow these days: The Russian Superfinal (men and women), Bilbao and the last but not least- King's Tournament- which is held in Bucharest.
     I enjoy following the Women's Superfinal (I guess it's easy to understand :P ). It's a strong and interesting event and the funny thing is that I played against almost all the players (except Ekaterina Kovalevskaya): Baira Kovanova and Valentina Gunina- the leaders of the tournament,both on 3,5p/4; Natalia Pogonina and Alexandra Kosteniuk on 2,5p; Ekaterina Kovalevskaya on 2p; Daria Charochkina, Alina Kashlinskaya, Alexandra Goryachkina and Anastasia Bodnaruk with 1,5p and Tatiana Kosintseva unexpectedly with just 1p. There are 5 more rounds to be played and anything can happen, I will definitely enjoy following the games, which you can also do with live video and commentary  in Russian on the official site of the event: http://online.russiachess.org/#2013/10/superfinalw2013/round5/Gunina, Valentina:Kosintseva, Tatiana
     Here are some photos from the event, whcih I've found on a popular Russian site:http://chesspro.ru/details/superfinal_4

Alina Kashlinskaya vs Natalia Pogonina

Anastasia Bodnaruk vs Valentina Gunina

     The men's Superfinal is also very interesting to follow, with Vladimir Kramnik, Petr Svidler, Dmitry Andreikin, Sergey Karjakin, Nikita Vitiugov, Ernesto Inarkiev, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexey Goganov, Anton Shomoev and Alexander Motylev( though I can't say that I played against any of them this time :P ).

Sergey Karjakin vs Ernesto Inarkiev

Vladimir Kramnik vs Alexey Goganov

     Wish you all a nice week!

Keep tuned for more news!

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!