Thursday, November 12, 2009

Smerdon To Face Super GM

As I mentioned last week, there is a large group of young Aussies headed for Turkey to participate in the World Youth Chess Championships. Canberra's Alana Chibnall has posted some photos on Facebook of a few Aussie team members, while ChessDom has an album with just a handful of images so far. Let's hope that they'll keep adding a few more from here on end.

Also en route to OTB action in the upcoming World Cup, in far away Khanty-Mansiysk, is GM David Smerdon. For such a terribly long trip I hope he'll manage to survive his first round opponent who is none other than Cuban numero uno, super GM Leinier Dominguez.

Someone with probably slightly better chances to move beyond the first round is Pinoy GM Wesley So. He has the advantageous white bits against GM Gadir Guseinov. But fellow Pinoy grandmasters Laylo and Antonio will hold the black pieces against no less than Navara and Kamsky, respectively.

4 comments:

Garvin said...

Are you aware each round is two games CGM?

Alana Chibnall said...

Good luck Smerdon!

By the way I also have a blog for the World Youth tournament, http://worldyouthchess2009.blogspot.com . I will try to update it daily - it depends on the internet connection.

Anonymous said...

I wish they had it arranged in 8 player round robin groups with perhaps the best 2 going through to the next level so that players knew they were guaranteed at least 7 games. It seems such a stupid concept to go all that way for just 2 gamEs. :)

Jon said...

Our Ozzie hero has managed to hold the Super GM off with a draw in Rd1. Smerdon will face off against the Cuban with the white pieces next round.