Dubai open

[Tim Harding]

David Howell is on 2/2 in the Dubai open and will play top board tomorrow. Gawain Jones also has 2/2 and will be on board 7.
GMs are starting to meet.
Howell has White v Emre Can.
Other contenders include Jobava, Adhiban, Sethuraman, Akopian, Safarli and Ivan Sokolov.

The US Championships start on Thursday.

[Paul Dargan]

Field seems a bit stronger than usual. Good to see the FCPL crew doing well, Marvin Marcos (about 2120) has 1/2 after 2 draws with ~2500 GMs in each of the first two rounds...

Hope to make it for the Blitz on Friday.

Paul

[Chris Rice]

Good luck Paul.

I see Dan Bisby is playing and good luck to him as well as he receives the typical Dubai pairings. Round 1 he gets Akopian (2656) and loses then round 2 gets a 1938 and wins and one assumes he'll do the same in round 3 with the guy rated 1468.

[LawrenceCooper]

Links:

http://www.dubaichess.ae/do2016-live/
http://chess-results.com/tnr215792.aspx?lan=1

Start time 14:00 UK time.

[Mick Norris]

chess.com report includes analysis of 1 of Gawain's games

[Mick Norris]

David Howell is on 2/2 in the Dubai open and will play top board tomorrow. Gawain Jones also has 2/2 and will be on board 7.
GMs are starting to meet.
Howell has White v Emre Can.

David won, as did Gawain and are among 9 players on 3/3

chess24live

[Tim Harding]

David Howell is on 2/2 in the Dubai open and will play top board tomorrow. Gawain Jones also has 2/2 and will be on board 7.
GMs are starting to meet.
Howell has White v Emre Can.

David won, as did Gawain and are among 9 players on 3/3

chess24live

Top pairings for round 4:
D. Anton Guijarro v Howell
Akopian-Savchenko
Yilmaz-Jones
Sokolov-Gopal
Amin (2.5) v Mammadov (3)

Board 35 (not live): IM Lorparizangeneh v FM Bisby (2/3)

[Tim Harding]

Bisby is live after all and he's winning approaching the time control (about 6pm BST).

Gawain is worse but his opponent is playing on increment and Howell is in his usual desperate zeitnot too.

UPDATE: They have all made the time control. Bisby is a piece up; Howell has R,B,4P (two on each wing, the kingside ones being passed) versus two rooks and two queenside pawns. The online engine sees good winning chances for him.
Jones faces a long battle to save half a point.
In other top games, AKopian has won to reach 4/4.

Board 4 and 5 were drawn so a strong Indian cohort who had 2.5/3 and won today are very much still in contention.

MUCH LATER: They didn't seem to get much (if any) added time at move 40. Howell and Bisby have now won.

Jones now looks ok for a draw but at this speed anything could happen. White has R, h-pawn and two f-pawns against R, a- and c-pawn. The issue is whether Gawain's pawns give enough counterplay to stop him getting mated because the White K is ominously well placed but the online engine says nearly equal.
I'm leaving this event now with the US championship starting in 20 minutes, live commentary to be enjoyed.

[Paul Dargan]

Tim - there is NO added time it's G90 + 30s from the start. Standard out here.

Paul

[NickFaulks]

Tim - there is NO added time it's G90 + 30s from the start. Standard out here.

Paul

It defies belief that a top level tournament would use this time control for one round per day ( I know, there are two rounds on Saturday to accommodate a rest day ).

Still, our boys seem to perform well in these shootouts, so shouldn't complain. Shame about the chess, though.

[Tim Harding]

Tim - there is NO added time it's G90 + 30s from the start. Standard out here.

Paul

OK, thanks. I don't think I would ever want to play that time control.

Gawain's game ended in stalemate.

Rd 5: Howell-Akopian (the only players on 4/4)

Loads of players on 3.5; Gawain White against IM Gagare.

Bisby will have White v GM Mollah Abdullah of Bangladesh.

[Paul Dargan]

Yep - I was quite pleased that I predicted the line with a1=Q and stalemate a few moves earlier looking at Gawain's game in the lobby.

Rest day/blitz tomorrow, the double round Saturday. Maybe it's me getting old too gents but I also dislike this time control, but probably not enough to stop me playing with it, especially as it's pretty much all that is on offer in Dubai and AD.

Paul

[Tim Harding]

Yep - I was quite pleased that I predicted the line with a1=Q and stalemate a few moves earlier looking at Gawain's game in the lobby.

Rest day/blitz tomorrow, the double round Saturday. Maybe it's me getting old too gents but I also dislike this time control, but probably not enough to stop me playing with it, especially as it's pretty much all that is on offer in Dubai and AD.

Paul

What about the Al-AIn Open? Do you know if that will be held again this year?

(Though the round on 25 Dec and double round on Boxing Day is likely to deter western entries if they follow the 2015 schedule.)

[Paul Dargan]

I believe Al Ain is going ahead again - though dates out here get announced later than you'd expect. There will also be Ramadan tournaments in each Emirate (AD normally the most significant) and there will be an AD Summer event, probably late August.

Gawain won the rest-day Blitz today outright ... a few random fly-ins not playing in the main event like V.bologan and Iordecescu. I propped-up the mid-table but did get to play Jobava.

Paul

[Ian Thompson]

There will also be Ramadan tournaments in each Emirate (AD normally the most significant) and there will be an AD Summer event, probably late August.

21-29 August - http://www.adchessfestival.com/en/news/detail/36