Chess
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Your support makes all the difference.ONCE UPON a time, all-play-all tournaments used to be the professional's staple diet. But that era has long passed, except for the very top dozen players or so in the world, so each round robin is memorable.
My last one was at Katrineholm in Sweden this May and also featured Ulf Andersson and Alexei Fedorov. I'll examine Fedorov's victory in Aars later this week but today the strong Quadrangular tournament in Helsingor.
Held from 19 to 25 October to commemorate the 75th jubilee of the Helsingor Chess Club, this double-round event ended up as a sandwich with the two Danes Curt Hansen on 4.5/6 and Sune Berg Hansen on just 1 surrounding the two Swedes, Ulf Andersson on 3.5 and Jonny Hector on 3.
What must surely have been the decisive moment of the tournament came in the third round, when Curt Hansen succeeded in beating the supremely solid Ulf Andersson.
Usually Ulf appears to find extra ranks on the board to retreat to, rather than create a strategic weakness. Here, however, he acquiesced in an isolated queen's pawn. After his counterplay ran out of gas, he simply lost the weakling.
In round one of the Isle of Man Monarch Assurance Open, the newly fledged MBE Nigel Short beat Chris Ward.
White: Curt Hansen
Black: Ulf Andersson
French Tarrasch
1 e4 e6
2 d4 d5
3 Nd2 c5
4 Ngf3 Nc6
5 exd5 exd5
6 Bb5 Bd6
7 dxc5 Bxc5
8 0-0 Nge7
9 Nb3 Bd6
10 Re1 0-0
11 Bd3 h6
12 h3 Bf5
13 Be3 Re8
14 c3 Bxd3
15 Qxd3 Qd7
16 Bc5 Ng6
17 Bxd6 Qxd6
18 Re3 Nce5
19 Nxe5 Rxe5 20 Rxe5 Qxe5
21 Rd1 Nf4
22 Qe3 Qg5
23 Qf3 Rd8
24 Nd4 Ne6
25 Nf5 Rd7
26 h4 Qf4
27 Qxf4 Nxf4
28 g3 Ng6
29 c4 Ne7
30 Nxe7+ Rxe7
31 cxd5 f6
32 Kg2 Kf7
33 Kf3 Ke8
34 Rd3 Kd8
35 Re3 Rc7
36 Rc3 Rd7
37 Ke4 Re7+
38 Kf5 Re2
39 Rb3 Rxf2+
40 Kg6 b6
41 Kxg7
1-0
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