Wednesday 12 December 2007

2007 Commonwealth Championship - Final

The Commonwealth Championships finished in a predictable triumph for India (the host nation), although the Australian contingent would be pleased with their performances. The tournament was won by former British Champion GM R.B. Ramesh (8.5/10), on tie-break over GM S.S. Ganguly. The best placed Australian players were IM Aleks Wohl, and IM David Smerdon. Wohl finished on an undefeated 7/10, including 4 draws against his GM opponents. Smerdons 7 points came from only 9 games, as he missed his 3rd round game due to illness.
Gareth Oliver finished on 6 (including a win over IM DP Singh), Shannon Oliver 5.5, Ben Harris 5.0 (draw with IM Deep Sengupta), Alexandra Jule 4.0, Rebecca Harris 4.0, Harry Hughes 2.5

During the event I managed to watch some of the games on the net, including this exciting Rd 4 game between Aleks Wohl and Shashikant Kutwal. It looked like Kutwal's attack must break through but Wohl defended accurately and emerged with the advantage of 2 bishops v rook.

Kutwal,S (2321) - Wohl,A H (2415) [B04]
Parsvnath Commonwealth Chess Championsh New Delhi India (4), 05.12.2007

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 g6 5.Bc4 c6 6.0-0 Bg7 7.exd6 Qxd6 8.h3 0-0 9.Re1 Nd7 10.Bb3 b5 11.Bg5 e6 12.Nbd2 Bb7 13.Ne4 Qc7 14.c4 bxc4 15.Bxc4 N5f6 16.Nxf6+ Nxf6 17.Rc1 c5 18.Bb3 Ne4 19.dxc5 Nxg5 20.Nxg5 Bxb2 21.Rc2 Rad8 22.Qg4 Bg7 (D)
23.Nxf7 Rxf7 24.Qxe6 Bc6 25.Rce2 Bf8 26.Re5 Kg7 27.Qxf7+ Qxf7 28.Bxf7 Kxf7 29.R1e3 Rd1+ 30.Re1 Rd4 31.Rc1 Rd2 32.a3 Ra2 33.Rce1 Rxa3 34.Re6 Bd7 35.R6e4 Bxc5 36.Rf4+ Kg7 37.Rc4 Ra5 38.Rxc5 Rxc5 39.Re7+ Kg8 40.Rxd7 a5 41.Ra7 h5 42.h4 Kf8 0-1

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