Monday, May 12, 2008

Alex Wohl in Baku

International master Alex Wohl is currently playing in the 3rd International Chess Festival “President’s Cup” in Baku. For those keenly watching the composition of the Australian men's team for this year's Olympiad, Alex's performance there will be crucial. After a poor outing in Bad Woerishofen (Germany) earlier this year where he scored 5/7 and dropping his last 2 games, it seems that even Alex's enthusiasm suffered a setback.

Says he, "Bad Woerishofen was such a downer that for a while I was considering giving up altogether".

If he plays well enough in Baku, he may apply for a berth on the Olympiad side. "May" because there are evidently a number of factors that the likable Australian is considering and not the least of these is, I'm sure, his new found role as a family man. Anyway, he also tells me: "will keep reading your blog even if I retire". That is good to know!

3 comments:

doubleroo said...

Not the correction I want to make but it was actually 5/9. Including a club game and the first round here (white v 1950) I am now on a 4 game losing streak :-) Selectors take note.

Chaos said...

Your blog is a delightful. Not to put down other blogs, but yours is simply appealing to the reader with nice, sweet updates.

Anonymous said...

Here is the game Van Wely-Rahmanov, the largest upset in Round 1:

Van Wely,L (2677) - Rahmanov,S (2133) [A84]
3-rd Presiden Cup,Baku Azerbaijan (1.3), 12.05.2008

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 f5 4.Bf4 Nf6 5.e3 Bd6 6.Nc3 c6 7.Bd3 0-0 8.0-0 Qe7 9.c5 Bxf4 10.exf4 Nbd7 11.Qa4 Ne4 12.Ne2 Ndf6 13.b4 a6 14.Rad1 Kh8 15.Qa5 Ng4 16.a4 Bd7 17.h3 Nh6 18.Qc7 Nf7 19.Ne5 Nxe5 20.dxe5 Rfd8 21.Qb6 g5 22.f3 gxf4 23.fxe4 f3 24.Rxf3 fxe4 25.Bxe4 dxe4 26.Rf4 Be8 27.Rxe4 Bh5 28.Rdd4 Rg8 29.Nf4 Bf3 30.Re3 Bd5 31.Re2 Raf8 32.b5 axb5 33.axb5 Qg5 34.h4 Qg4 35.Rf2 Ra8 36.Ne2 Ra1+ 37.Kh2 0-1