Ivanchuk Remained on Top

Ukrainian GM concluded the M-Tel Masters tournament in style, winning his final game against Ivan Cheparinov. The latter finished fourth, and achieved a lot of experience in his last two tournaments. Ivanchuk became the first foreigner (first not-Topalov) winner. His result is simply great, 6 wins and 4 draws. In the last game he did not go for passive defense, although draw would suffice for overall victory, and played sharp line, which proved him right. Ivanchuk’s win is good for the event, since many people expected that winner will be again ex-world champion Topalov, which might have made the tournament predictable and boring.
Veselin Topalov is second. His final encounter against Radjabov ended peacefully, although Azeri sacrificed a queen for only two bishops and had great chances to win. Some annotators called the game “the pearl” of the tournament. Tejmour Radjabov took clear third.
In the fight for the fifth place Aronian and Bu drew, and shared 5-6 places. The Chinese managed to recover in the last 3 games, while Aronian did not show the excellent chess that he is capable of.




Dejan Junior was more interested by the statues of the owls rather than chess...