 Two golden medals won by Russians Alexandra Kosteniuk and Sergey Karjakin!
On the second day of rapid one of the heroes of the previous day Sergey Karjakin managed to take a sole lead and won the tournament one round before the end. His victory over Bologan became the decisive but he also won the last game against Vassily Ivanchuk to get the gold medal 1,5 points ahead of Hikaru Nakamura, who came second.
For the second time American player won the silver medal in the Mind Games! The real struggle for the third place was between Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Levon Aronian and Laurent Fressinet, who shared 3rd place with 9 points before the last round. All of them played quite riskily and unexpectedly everybody lost their games. As a result everything was decided on the tie-break points and the Azeri player Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was more fortunate than the others.
Few key moments of the blitz tournament:
Karjakin-Aronian. Diagram after final move Be5 in round 13.
With this move Karjakin decides the game and the tournament by beating his closest rival at that time. White now forces his way to f6 with the king and wins the f7 pawn with a decisive advantage, which is why Aronian resigned.
Grischuk- Karjakin after 49 ...Bf4 round 12.
With the strong move 49...Bf4! The later tournament winner forces mate due with ...Rh2 next, and despite white can promote his pwan to a queen, there is no defense.
The sole leader of the day one Alexandra Kosteniuk didn’t play stable on the second day of the blitz. “I started well at the first day of the competition but I made my life harder on the second day”, said Kosteniuk after the tournament. In the 14th round Alexandra lost against Bela Khotenashvili and let Anna Muzychuk to become the sole leader one round to go. Nevertheless Kosteniuk outplayed Anna Zatonskikh in the last round.
Kosteniuk-Zatonskikh after 26...Rb7!?
With this tricky move Kosteniuk makes a devious trap, which her opponent falls in to: 27 Rxb7?? 27...Qe1+! with this elegant Queen sacrifice the Russian player forces mate and wins the gold medal! after 28 Rxe1 Rxe1 is mate.
Slovenian player Anna Muzychuk made a draw against German player Elisabeth Paehtz. As a result, Alexandra Kosteniuk got the gold medal, ahead on tie-break points of Anna Muzychuk. Elisabeth Paehtz shared the third place with Humpy Koneru but the bronze was taken by German player. |
