2016/17 Hastings International - Day 5

GM Allan Stig Rasmussen is the outright leader of the 2016/17 Hastings International, after defeating GM Murali Karthikeyan in a wild game in round 5. Karthikeyan threw his pieces at Rasmussen's wandering king, in a sacrificial attack that looked promising, but a couple of defensive moves from Rasmussen was all it took to show the attack wasn't working, and Karthikeyan resigned.
GM Mark Hebden is in outright second after drawing a tough game with GM Deep Sengupta. A number of other draws on the top boards, plus wins further down, sees quite a pack sharing third place on 3.5/5. One result of this is that players looking for norms all get reasonable pairings, as this group contains a number of GM's.
This round saw a couple of 'over-performers' come unstuck against stronger opponents. Claudio Boino (2066) made it up to Board 8, but was SP Sethuraman's third victim in a row. Carlo Mazrano was having a fantastic event, but went down in a miniature to IM Bobby Cheng. And Harry Press miscalculated a sequence against Freddie Hand (2205) but even then missed a last trick that would have drawn the game.
Tonight Tomorrow night sees the 2017 Hastings International Blitz at the White Rock Hotel. Unlike it's Doeberl counterpart, this is a smaller affair, as the venue only holds around 40 players. As I am one of the arbiters for this, my round 7 report may be somewhat delayed.


Cheng,Bobby - Marzano,Carlo [A49]
2016/17 Hastings International (5), 01.01.2017

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. b3 Bg7 4. Bb2 d6 5. d4 c5 6. Bg2 cxd4 7. Nxd4 d5 8. O-O O-O 9. c4 dxc4 10. bxc4 Qb6 11. Qb3 Nfd7 12. Rd1 e5 13. Nb5 Nc5 14. Qe3 Na4 15. Ba3 Rd8 16. N1c3 Nxc3 17. Qxb6 Rxd1+ 18. Rxd1 1-0

If you wish to see the results, or follow the live games, then visit the tournament website at http://www.hastingschess.com/