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Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2020 4:19 pm
by John Moore
This tournament has got under way today with a large number of entrants and plenty of GMs at the top of Section A. So far as I am concerned, it will make a refreshing change to watch some proper chess rather than endless rapid and blitz events with Carlsen, MVL, Nakamura, So and the usual suspects.
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 10:51 am
by John Moore
Theo Khoury drew with Black against a 2206 rated Spaniard in Round 1. An excellent start.
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 1:56 pm
by Wadih Khoury
He was actually furious at himself, as he got a winning position, but blundered in the position below.
He basically calculated that Rxg2 - Rg5+ leads to either a stalemate or a draw, and couldn't find a decent alternative plan, thus giving up the h pawn and leading to a draw.
He thinks he should have given up his exchange for 2 pawns earlier, leading to an easy pawn endgame, or stockfish suggests Re1 in this position.
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 10:03 pm
by Matthew Turner
I think Rxg2 should be enough for a fairly easy win here
.......Rxg2
Rg5+ Kxf6
Rxg2 Rxe4+
Kxh5 a5
The white King isn't really where he wants to be.
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:02 am
by Mick Norris
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 9:04 am
by Chris Rice
A French player from Chartres Marc Andria Maurizzi won in Round 9 and achieved his first GM norm at 13 years, 7 months and 6 days. (Lennart Ootes - photo)
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 11:24 am
by Wadih Khoury
He is one of the french big hopes.
Another one is Marco Materia, a 2009 boy (I think) who got his first IM norm this year (I think in Cap d'Agde).
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:56 am
by Wadih Khoury
Overall the tournament was well organised, plenty of space between boards, spread across 3 big halls (and an overflow smaller room).
Players were provided with pen, paper and water bottles.
Masks mandatory, not walking allowed during the games. No spectators.
There was some constant changes around the rules for food and backpacks which irritated some parents (it went as bad as organisers suggesting children keep their food on the floor or in their pockets. Not sure what drove the constant changes).
One negative point that all future organisers need to take into account:
In order to limit the flow in the building, organisers only allowed players inside the hotel at a certain time, in groups of ten. While this did indeed limit the density and flow inside the building, it had the dubious consequence of resulting in 50 + players aggregating at the hotel doors before the start of the event, reducing drastically safety distances and increasing transmission risks.
For future organisers, I would suggest letting in people as soon as they want, as long as they go straight to their boards. Otherwise you create a bottleneck which is one of the worst configurations you can have.
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:42 pm
by Tim Spanton
Sounds (mostly) good. I assume the weather was too, and no problems getting back to England?
Anything else on the horizon?
Re: Sunway Sitges 2020
Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:18 pm
by Wadih Khoury
Tim Spanton wrote: ↑Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:42 pm
Sounds (mostly) good. I assume the weather was too, and no problems getting back to England?
Anything else on the horizon?
Weather was great.
Getting back was horribly stressful, as we went left a country broadly ok, with talks of 5 days of freedom for Christmas, to creation of a new tier, a new virus strain and a quasi blockade of the island.
Thankfully it seems no flight from Spain to the UK was affected.