Chess
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Your support makes all the difference.CLUB CHESS at the top level is very different from local league
play, with many professionals turning out for a whole variety of teams in different countries. Indeed, chatting recently to one top grandmaster on the Internet Chess Club (ICC http:// www.chessclub.com), I gathered that he plays in no fewer than six different countries - Germany, Holland, Austria, Spain, France and (if I remember rightly) Belgium. That still leaves plenty of untapped European leagues, though, including Croatia (where he doesn't play, but his wife does!).
Like several other nations - though not England, Holland, France or Germany - the Croatians run team championships in a single session like a normal tournament. This year's was on 9-18 September in the same complex in Pula at the bottom of the Istrian Peninsula where England won the European (national) team championships in May 1997.
Ten teams took part in the powerful top league, which included 23 grandmasters among nearly 120 registered players - for, though the matches were over six boards, all the clubs had much larger squads. Mravince (Kozul, Dizdarevic, Kurajica, Kovacevic, Nikolac and Zelic) won the title with 36/54 ahead of Zrinjevac (Morovic, Bogdan Lalic, Shariazdanov, Zelcic, Komljenovic and Sulava) 33 and Pula itself on 31. And you can see the strength in depth from the list of top scorers on each board: 1) Movsesian 6/9, 2) Tkachiev 6/8, 3) Dizdarevich 6/9, 4) Kurajica 7/9 5) Vlado Kovakevic and 6) Sale and Sulava 7/9.
In these two miniatures, very strong players suffer complete disasters. (I don't want to ridicule them - one of the joys of being human rather than a machine is that you are entitled sometimes to make a mistake.)
In the first, the usually super-solid Tukmakov had a complete aberration with 16 ...Bf6?? After 17 Bxd5, he had to resign at once since 17 ...exd5 18 Nxd5! Rxd5 19 Qe8 is mate! While in the second, under pressure from 9 Ne5 onwards, Palac lashed out with 13 ...c4. But Gyimesi calmly took the pawn, then brought his knight back. White's temporary inability to castle was quite irrelevant and the sequence starting 21 Nc7+! was terminal.
White: Mikhail Ulibin
Black: Vladimir Tukmakov
Caro Kann
White: Zoltan Gyimesi
Black: Mladen Palac
Queen's Indian Defence
1 e4 c6
2 d4 d5
3 exd5 cxd5
4 c4 Nf6
5 Nc3 e6
6 Nf3 Bb4
7 cxd5 Nxd5
8 Qc2 Nc6
9 Be2 0-0
10 0-0 Be7
11 Rd1 Qb6
12 Qe4 Rd8
13 Bd3 g6
14 Bc4 Nf6
15 Qe2 Nd5
16 Bh6 Bf6??
17 Bxd5
1-0
1 d4 Nf6
2 c4 e6
3 Nf3 b6
4 g3 Ba6
5 b3 d5
6 cxd5 exd5
7 Bg2 c5
8 Nc3 Nc6
9 Ne5 Nxd4
10 e3 Ne6
11 Nxd5 Rc8
12 Bb2 Nd7
13 Qg4 c4
14 Nxc4 b5
15 Ne5 Nxe5
16 Bxe5 b4
17 Rd1 Qa5
18 Bf1 Bb7
19 Bc4 Rd8
20 e4 Bc5?
21 Nc7+ Nxc7
22 Bxf7+ Kxf7
23 Qxg7+
1-0
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