Wednesday 4 January 2017

2016/17 Hastings International - Day 7

The 5 consecutive win by GM SP Sethuraman (IND) has thrown the 2016/17 Hastings International wide open. He defeated GM Allan Stig Rasmussen (DEN) who had been a point in front going into the game, but is now tied with Sethuraman, GM Deep Sengupta (IND) and GM Murali Karthikeyan (IND).
Sethuraman played a line against the Caro-Kan made famous by Deep Blue against Kasparov, and while Rasmussen avoided Kasparov's poor choices, he still was hit with some tactics on f7 in the middlegame. A soild pawn ahead, Sethuraman then nursed the advantage all the way to the completion of the game.
Sengupta and Karthikeyan completed the Indian hat trick on the top boards, with wins over Fier (BRA) and Gledura (HUN). In round 8 Karthikeyan is up against Sengupta, while Rasmussen faces Sengupta.
IM Bobby Cheng was looking for a win to keep his GM norm chances on track but could only draw with veteran IM Petr Marusenko (UKR). IM Justin Tan had a similar result, drawing with IM Vladimir Prosviriakov (USA).
Last night also saw the 2017 Hastings International Blitz. 25 players took part, but it was exceptionally strong with 3 GM's. 2 IM's and at least 1 FM starting in the bottom half of the draw (and no, it wasn't me). GM Keith Arkell won the tournament with 7.5/9, with IM Bobby Cheng, and GM Danny Gormally tied for 2nd on 7.


Sethuraman,S.P (2647) - Rasmussen,Allan Stig (2502)
Hastings Masters 2016/17 Horntye Park Sports Complex, B (7.1), 03.01.2017


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

2 comments:

Garvin said...

How do you think the Baku system is working as a form of accelerated pairings? A few of us discussed it 'at length', but with no practical testing, hard to form any conclusions. So I am wondering, what are your impressions as you are seeing it being used in an actual tournament?

Would you be willing to try it at a 'monster swiss' weekender here in Australia with no modifications? Or do you think it needs some modifications?

Shaun Press said...

The Baku System seemed to work fine here, although Hastings has used acceleration for years, so maybe the players did not notice that a new system was being used. Certainly there were no complaints, especially in round 3 (when the bonus point was dropped to half) or round 4 (when it was dropped altogether).
Also in its favour was the field had a fairly even distribution throughout, without a long tail (which happens in Australia). But I would be happy to run a large event using it without modification ( using 1,1,0.5 bonus points) at this stage. It is just a question of which event.