Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Smerdon Bows Out of Siberia

GM David Smerdon bows out of the World Cup, but not before giving Cuban maestro Leinier Dominguez one hec of a big scare. The Australian held the 2719-rated Cuban, who won the World Blitz championship last year, to draws in the two long games and three rapids, a pretty wonderful feat!

Then this happened:

World Cup 2009
Dominguez Perez, Leinier
Smerdon, David
B73

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. Be2 O-O 8. O-O Nc6 9. Qd2 Bd7 10. Rfd1 Rc8 11. f3 a6 12. a4 Ne5 13. Nd5 e6 14. Nxf6+ Bxf6 15. b3 d5 16. f4 Nc6 17. e5 Bg7 18. Nxc6 Bxc6 19. Bd4 f6 20. exf6 Bxf6 21. Qe3 Bxd4 22. Rxd4 Qf6 23. Re1 Kg7 24. Bd3 Rce8 25. g3 Kg8 26. Qe5 Qxe5 27. Rxe5 Kf7 28. h4 h5 29. Kf2 Kf6 30. Ke3 a5 31. c3 Rb8 32. c4 b6 33. cxd5 Bxd5 34. Bc4 Bxc4 35. bxc4 Rfd8 36. Rb5 Rxd4 37. Kxd4 Rd8+ 38. Kc3 Rd6 39. c5 bxc5 40. Rxc5 Rd1 41. Rxa5 Ra1 42. Kb2 Rg1 43. Rg5 Rg2+ 44. Kb3 Rg1 45. a5 Ra1 46. Kb4 Rb1+ 47. Kc5 Ke7 48. a6 1-0

In his latest blog entry, Smerdon says, "Well folks, I write to you on our last night in Khanty-Mansiysk. My dream run has come to an end, after I lost the final rapid game to go down in the tie-break 2.5-1.5. Painfully, the loss was due to a brain explosion right at the death, while the ‘obvious’ move would have seen a probable draw and progression into the blitz play-offs. And wouldn’t that have been something – blitz tiebreaks against the former world blitz champion!"

1 comment:

NZchessplayer said...

Wow !!

an amazing result for GM Smerdon holding a 2700+ player in 5 games !