Sunny Beach

[LawrenceCooper]

http://live.sunnybeach-chess.com/

Yang-Fan and James Adair both playing live.

[LawrenceCooper]

http://live.sunnybeach-chess.com/

Yang-Fan and James Adair both playing live.

Wins for both players to move onto 3.5/4 into the joint lead with IM Axel Rombaldoni, James has already faced 2 GMs & 2 IMs

http://www.sunnybeach-chess.com/results_2013.html

[David Grobler]

http://live.sunnybeach-chess.com/

Yang-Fan and James Adair both playing live.

Wins for both players to move onto 3.5/4 into the joint lead with IM Axel Rombaldoni, James has already faced 2 GMs & 2 IMs

http://www.sunnybeach-chess.com/results_2013.html

early days....but James has a MASSIVE chance of a Norm yes ?

[Roger de Coverly]

early days....but James has a MASSIVE chance of a Norm yes ?

The Open A has a minimum rating of around 2350. There's something of a squad of younger British players participating. Round 5 pairings

1 IM Zhou Yang-Fan 3½ 3½ IM Rombaldoni Axel
2 GM Petkov Vladimir 3 3½ FM Adair James R

7 GM Popchev Milko 2½ 2½ IM Trent Lawrence

12 FM Kilpatrick Callum 2 1½ IM Nikolov Sasho

17 FM Griffiths Ryan Rhys 1 1 IM Collas Didier

[Peter D Williams]

http://live.sunnybeach-chess.com/

Yang-Fan and James Adair both playing live.

Thanks for posting the link to the live games on here.We have enjoyed watching them.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Good results and (I think, just as importantly) good games from all the English players today. James Adair is presumably back in contention for a GM norm - a "mere" IM norm must almost be in the bag, I should think.

[benedgell]

From Facebook:

Ryan Griffiths:

I feel very ashamed to withdraw from a tournament for the first time in my life. Great tournament, great people and great playing conditions but unfortunately Sunny Beach is a hellhole. We were conned out of money at every opportunity, Yang-Fan and Jonathan were punched in the face on the first night, and today when I woke up this morning I found that someone had gotten into our room during the night and had taken 1 laptop, 2 wallets and 2 phones and even the key to our apartment... I'm not going to keep bleeding my possessions to the "people" here.

[Jonathan Rogers]

So I gather. (The "Jonathan" is Jonathan Edwards in case anyone is wondering). Sounds as though we should be wishing the best on all fronts to the Engish players for the rest of the event ...

[Peter D Williams]

From Facebook:

Ryan Griffiths:

I feel very ashamed to withdraw from a tournament for the first time in my life. Great tournament, great people and great playing conditions but unfortunately Sunny Beach is a hellhole. We were conned out of money at every opportunity, Yang-Fan and Jonathan were punched in the face on the first night, and today when I woke up this morning I found that someone had gotten into our room during the night and had taken 1 laptop, 2 wallets and 2 phones and even the key to our apartment... I'm not going to keep bleeding my possessions to the "people" here.

If this is true then the ECF and any other Chess Federation of those players who have been punched or robbed should make some sort of contact with the organizers of this event to ask what is going on and what help is being given to these young players.I do hope that Ryan has made a complaint to the local police over his room being broken into and various items being stolen.

[Simon Brown]

He will need to report it to the police and get a reference otherwise it won't be covered by travel insurance or even home insurance, as these days many policies will cover such things.

[Greg Breed]

An amusing draw by Lawrence Trent v Yang-Fan Zhou just now.

[Date "2013.09.06"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"] [White "Yang-Fan Zhou"] [Black "Lawrence Trent"] [BlackElo "2429"] [WhiteElo "2481"] [Round "7"] [Event "12th Kesarovski - Stanchev Memorial "] [Site "Sunny Beach, Bulgaria "] 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3 a6 5.Qd2 b5 6.h4 h5 7.Nh3 Bxh3 8.gxh3 e6 9.Bg5 Ne7 10.O-O-O Nd7 11.Kb1 Nb6 12.Rg1 c6 13.Qf4 Qd7 14.Bf6 Bxf6 15.Qxf6 O-O-O 16.a4 bxa4 17.Bxa6+ Kb8 18.Rg5 d5 19.Qf3 Nec8 20.exd5 exd5 21.Re5 Qa7 22.Bxc8 Rxc8 23.b3 Rc7 24.Rde1 axb3 25.cxb3 Qa3 26.Kc2 Rb7 27.Rb1 Rc8 28.Qg3 Rbc7 29.Rb2 Qb4 30.Qd3 c5 31.Qb5 Rc6 32.Ra2 Qxb5 33.Nxb5 c4 34.b4 Rf6 35.Kc1 Re6 36.f4 c3 37.Ra3 Rc4 38.Kc2 Rxb4 39.Rb3 Rxb3 40.Kxb3 c2 41.Kxc2 Nc4 42.Rxe6 fxe6 43.Kd3 Kb7 44.Nc3 Nd6 45.Na4 Ne4 46.Ke3 Kc7 47.Kf3 Nd2+ 48.Ke2 Ne4 49.Kf3 Kd6 50.Nb2 Ke7 51.f5 exf5 52.Nd3 Nd2+ 53.Ke3 Nc4+ 54.Kf4 Kf6 55.Nb4 Nb6 56.Kg3 Ke6 57.Kf4 Kf6 58.Kg3 Ke6 59.Kf4 Nc8 60.Kg5 Ne7 61.Nd3 Kf7 62.Nf4 Nc6 63.Nxg6 Nxd4 64.Nf4 Ne6+ 65.Kxf5 Nxf4 66.Kxf4 Ke6 67.Ke3 Kf5 68.Kd4 Ke6 69.Kd3 Ke5 70.Ke3 d4+ 71.Kd3 Kd5 72.Kd2 Kd6 73.Kd3 Kc5 74.Kd2 Kd5 75.Kd3 Ke5 76.Kd2 Ke4 77.Ke2 d3+ 78.Kd2 Kd4 79.Kd1 Kc5 80.Kd2 Kc4 81.Kd1 Kd5 82.Kd2 Ke4 83.Kd1 Ke3 84.Ke1 Kd4 85.Kd1 Ke3 86.Ke1 Kf3 87.Kd2 Ke4 88.Kd1 Kf4 89.Kd2 Kg3 90.Kxd3 Kxh4 91.Ke2 Kxh3 92.Kf2 Kh2 93.Kf1 h4 94.Kf2 Kh1 95.Kf1 h3 96.Kf2 h2 97.Kf1 * Presumably they would both have known it was a draw by move 66 so not really sure why they bothered to carry on?!

[Jonathan Rogers]

agreed but the last 30 moves were played very quickly. Lawrence probably felt annoyed with himself for not having made more of his position and was not in the mood to agree a draw at once.

[LawrenceCooper]

IM norm for James Adair today. He needs a draw tomorrow for a GM norm.

EDIT: Callum Kilpatrick also has an IM norm. Despite playing 8 Bulgarians he's okay because of the number of foreign player & GMs/IMs in the event. Thanks to Sean Hewitt for reminding me of the relevant rule:

* The regulations regarding mix of federations as in the boxes marked * are waived if the event is a Swiss System tournament in which the competitors include at least 20 FIDE Rated players, not from the host federation, from at least 3 federations, at least 10 of whom hold GM, IM, WGM or WIM titles.See 1.46c concerning the rating floor of the lowest rated opponent.

[Ian Jamieson]

IM norm for James Adair today. He needs a draw tomorrow for a GM norm.

A draw tomorrow also takes his rating over 2400?

[LawrenceCooper]

IM norm for James Adair today. He needs a draw tomorrow for a GM norm.

A draw tomorrow also takes his rating over 2400?

It would keep him over but he's already gone over in rounds 6 and 8 which will suffice. A result tomorrow would obviously be the ideal though to get the GM norm and to be published over 2400.