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11th Monarch Assurance Isle of Man Chess International 28 Sept - 6 Oct 2002
Round 7 - 4 October
John Saunders reports: Round Seven Results
Epishin and Neverov lead with 5½/7
Dautov, Goloshchapov, Sulskis, Fridman, Felgaer, Stocek are on 5
Round 7 (2002.10.04) Neverov, Valeriy - Sulskis, Sarunas 1-0 36 E12 Queen's indian Zapata, Alonso - Epishin, Vladimir 0-1 57 B42 Sicilian Dautov, Rustem - Felgaer, Ruben 1/2 80 A58 Volga Gambit Goloshchapov, Alexander - Fridman, Daniel 1/2 18 B19 Caro-Kann Tyomkin, Dimitri - Shulman, Yuri 1/2 14 D31 Queen's Gambit Kogan, Artur - Stocek, Jiri 0-1 80 E12 Queen's indian Ulibin, Mikhail - Welling, Gerard 0-1 43 D16 Slav defence Lalic, Bogdan - Pert, Richard G 1/2 20 A85 Dutch defence Gladyszev, Oleg - Hebden, Mark 0-1 43 E62 Kings Indian Brady, Stephen - Miezis, Normunds 0-1 28 B42 Sicilian Ward, Christopher - Collins, Sam 1/2 58 A29 English 1 c4 e5 Kunte, Abhijit - Rayner, Francis 1/2 77 B47 Sicilian Orr, Mark J L - Grunberg, Mihai 1/2 39 A88 Dutch defence Palus, Ryszard - Ledger, Andrew 0-1 47 D10 Slav defence Ansell, Simon - Lutton, J.Ezra 1-0 48 B00 1 e4 Irregular Rotstein, Arkadij - Burrows, Martin 1-0 76 B92 Sicilian Najdorf Hinks-Edwards, Thom - Peralta, Fernando 0-1 36 B07 Pirc Cioara, Andrei Nestor - Blackburn, Jonathan L 1-0 31 E11 Bogo-Indian Palliser, Richard - Grant, Alan 1-0 51 E11 Bogo-Indian Hutchinson, Norman - Cooper, Lawrence 1/2 12 C85 Ruy Lopez Vuilleumier, Alex - Daly, Colm 1/2 41 B80 Sicilian Van Kemenade, Rudy - Dougherty, Michael 1-0 32 A40 Queen's pawn Cafolla, Peter - Gordon, Stephen J 1/2 35 E20 Nimzo Indian Purton, Ben - Marchand, Francois 1/2 26 D40 Queen's gambit Hanley, Craig - Cross, Glenn 1-0 45 C02 French Advance Fox, Anthony - Bennion, David 1/2 63 C46 Unknown Lutton, E Josiah - Goodger, Martyn 0-1 41 A00 Irregular Spanton, Timothy - Shepherd, Michael 1-0 100 B44 Sicilian Ormsby, Alan - Harborne, Matthew 0-1 46 B12 Caro-Kann Kelly, David - Waugh, Jonathon C 1/2 14 B52 Sicilian Hanley, James L - Cheshire, Paul L 1-0 55 C02 French Advance Ellison, Derek George - Bye 1/2
Simon Williams has withdrawn from the tournament
All Change at the Top
This tournament is getting to be like one of those countries satirized in that old Woody Allen movie ("Bananas", was it?) where the head of state only lasts about a day before being deposed and replaced by another temporary tyrant. Just as one player dares to put his head above the parapet, another one comes along and chops it off. Yesterday it was Sarunas Sulskis' turn to be deposed and replaced by a duumvirate consisting of tournament top seed, Vladimir Epishin of Russia, who has finally ground his way to the top, and Valery Neverov of Ukraine, who might have been here sooner had he not blundered a rook to Normunds Miezis in round three.
Top Board: Neverov (left) v Sulskis
Neverov-Sulskis was quite a serene game for most of its course, but with a sting in the tail for the Lithuanian. Most of the pieces had come off by about move 25, and the pawn structure was symmetrical. Neverov applied some pressure down the e-file and swapped off the queens to reach a level bishop ending. Sulskis reacted by... resigning. The ending was not level at all, in fact. Sulskis' bishop was trapped in the corner, while Neverov could use his bishop to keep it hemmed in and play a pass move whenever he felt like it. This meant that the king and pawn ending on the other side of the board was a relatively easy win for White. Neverov-Sulskis.
Epishin grabbed the initiative in the early middlegame after Zapata had played a little too provocatively. Epishin appled pressure with his minor pieces and Zapata seemed to miss a chance to drive Black back and soon lost a pawn and the ending. Zapata-Epishin. Dautov tried hard over 80 moves to join the two leaders, but Felgaer defended stoutly to hold the draw.
Stocek ground Kogan down remorsely over 80 moves, finally reaching one of those positions where the opponent has no counterplay and it is a question of long, sadistic manoeuvring before closing in on the winning plan. Fritz finds a lovely finish against one of the candidate defensive moves. Kogan-Stocek. Mikhail Ulibin reached a fairly level position against Gerard Welling (no relation of New in Chess writer Jules Welling, by the way) and was in his habitual time trouble. However, for once, time pressure told on him and he made a startling blunder losing a piece for nothing. This is the 2001 Monarch winner's third loss of the tournament and he is now out of running on 3½/7. Ulibin-Welling.
The
English fight-back started with wins from Mark Hebden, Andrew Ledger and
Simon Ansell (left, who has now won three in a row). Wales' Francis
Rayner is having a very good run and held firm against another GM - this
time Abhijit Kunte of India. Finally, the star of the lower boards was
well-known journalist from The Sun newspaper, Tim Spanton (right),
who ground out a bishop and knight versus king endgame. Frenchman Richard
Valenti had this endgame against Andrew Smith at last year's Monarch Assurance
but couldn't win it. But lower-rated Tim managed to checkmate his opponent
with some 15 moves to spare. Spanton-Shepherd.