Chess.com Isle Of Man Tournament 20 to 28 October 2018

[LawrenceCooper]

Gawain's ending has taken an unexpected twist after white's 48th move.

[Tim Harding]

Some fascinating endings tonight.
Karjakin won two knights versus pawn after Sevian blundered 81...Kf6?? instead of 81...Ke8. Very tough to defend that.

Gawain's opponent Antipov really butchered that rook ending; credit to our man for fighting hard.
Jones got Q v R and three pawns, won two of them but it's not over yet.

Praggn'andha is defending R v R+B using the second rank defence; still a long way to go.

Gupta just joined Xiong,Wang Hao and Naiditsch in the joint lead on 4.5/5.
Lots of big guns on 4 including Gawain if he can win.

[Tim Harding]

Gawain wasn't able to win. Despite the optimistic online engine scores, the tablebase seems to show he did not miss a win in the QvR phase.
Maybe earlier?
Praggn'andha also showed good technique to hold his R v R+B for the full 50 moves and fairly comfortably.

The round 6 draw is up now and surprisingly one of the leaders, Naiditsch, is taking a half point bye.
So it will be:
Xiong v Wang Hao (both 4.5)
Nakamura (4) v Gupta (4.5)
Jumabayev v MVL
Parligras v Karjakin
Wojtaszek v Svane

Followed by the 3.5 point group. This includes Short v So, Deac v Adams and Jones v Nihal Sarin

[Thomas Rendle]

Fairly certain earlier evaluations were just forcing the non-winning endgame.

[AustinElliott]

One of the engine / Tablebase fiends on Chessbomb claimed that 65... Qe1 was the only move in Jones' game to preserve winning chances, which came in the R+3P v Q phase. I'm guessing the idea may be that, by threatening the b-pawn straight away, Black might win both K-side Ps before they can advance, and then the BK is on the right side to assist against the R and b-pawn.

Impressed by Praaggnanandhaa holding on to R v R+B for 50 moves. We know after the 2016 candidates and the Carlsen match that Karjakin has strong nerves, but a 13 yr old... Wow.

[Tim Harding]

One of the engine / Tablebase fiends on Chessbomb claimed that 65... Qe1 was the only move in Jones' game to preserve winning chances, which came in the R+3P v Q phase. I'm guessing the idea may be that, by threatening the b-pawn straight away, Black might win both K-side Ps before they can advance, and then the BK is on the right side to assist against the R and b-pawn.

Impressed by Praaggnanandhaa holding on to R v R+B for 50 moves. We know after the 2016 candidates and the Carlsen match that Karjakin has strong nerves, but a 13 yr old... Wow.

You are right. I rechecked the tablebase and 65...Qe1 was the unique winning move, enabling Black to pick up all the pawns eventually.
The winning sequence is somewhat inhuman. The computer keeps the queen on the e-file and marches the king back down the b-file, eventually taking that pawn with the K though it could have been taken earlier by the queen.
Then BK comes to the d-file and starts to hunt the White K up the board until the h3-pawn drops. I haven't worked out yet why that has to happen.
So Black then has an improved version of what Gawain against the g-pawn.
There followed some strange manoeuvres with the pawn on g4 until White has to play g4-g5. The key position Black wants is Kf5, Qh2 (or h1, h3,h4) v WKg7, Rg6, Pg5. White is in zugzwang and must give up the g-pawn. Gawain can hardly be blamed for not finding this near the end of a very long session.

I think Sevian should have realised that Ke8 was right at the critical moment, as you want to run your king to the corner furthest away from the blockading knight. There were two variations where Karjakin only mated the move after Black queened.

[LawrenceCooper]

Simon's game has the potential to get lively:

1 Nf3 Nf6
2 c4 e6
3 b3 b6
4 Bb2 Bb7
5 Nc3 c5
6 e3 Be7
7 g4

[Jonathan Rogers]

Round 4 ties involve various Indians against Adams, Howell, Jones & Williams. Then two stand-out games:

Short - Karjakin
Leko - Gormally

Glenn House picks up GM Dennis Wagner who seems to have found time to play this tournament while managing Huddersfield

Incidentally, this being the IoM, Manx Liberty and all that, where are they - the Manx Liberty GMs?

On the while, they are not there, though I haven't checked whether they are playing elsewhere. Strong though they are, they presumably don't expect to challenge the world elite for the top prizes.

Although arguably their best player (from last year, and one of whose 4NCL games was noted on this forum viewtopic.php?f=13&t=9709) is in the field and is competing with the elite GMs. Mircea-Emilian Parligras will simply be winning on board 4 v Karjakin if he plays 32 Qxa6, according to SF.

[LawrenceCooper]

Simon's game has the potential to get lively:

1 Nf3 Nf6
2 c4 e6
3 b3 b6
4 Bb2 Bb7
5 Nc3 c5
6 e3 Be7
7 g4

1-0 in 32 moves Adams has also won.

[Tim Harding]

Nigel drew. Gawain and David still playing at 7.40pm.

Naiditsch, Nakamura, Xiong, Wang, MVL and Wojtaszek all have 5/6.
If Parligras can finish Karjakin off there will be seven joint leaders, but it looks like he has lost most of his advantage.
(R and blockaded a-pawn v R with two pawns each on the kingside.)

Xiong came close but it seems the BvN ending (and possible K+P ending) wasn't won.

[Mick Norris]

Gawain won; David drew

standings after round 6

pairings round 7

Nigel gets Aronian, after playing Karjakin, Grischuk & So in the last 3 rounds

[Steven DuCharme]

Go Xiong and Sevian

[JustinHorton]

.
If Parligras can finish Karjakin off there will be seven joint leaders, but it looks like he has lost most of his advantage.

He had it in his hand only a few moves from the end, but the Great Defender saved the day again.

[NickFaulks]

He had it in his hand only a few moves from the end

You might think that anyone who is good enough to reach a winning R+P v R ending against Karjakin should then be good enough to win it. I suppose is just shows that by the end of a tough six hour game, top players can be just as disoriented as anyone else.

[LawrenceCooper]

He had it in his hand only a few moves from the end

You might think that anyone who is good enough to reach a winning R+P v R ending against Karjakin should then be good enough to win it. I suppose is just shows that by the end of a tough six hour game, top players can be just as disoriented as anyone else.

Both take a HPB today.