11th. ORDIX Open

Playing for blood, as grandmasters should

by Eric van Reem

More players, more grandmasters, more, more more...This year´s Ordix Open breaks every record and for the first time more than 500 players came to the Rheingoldhalle to play renowned rapid chess tournament: the exact number of players is 542 and that makes the Chess Tigers treasurer happy! To get the players to their board on time, the organisers in Mainz use a simple but efficient trick: they play music between the rounds. As soon as the music starts to play, the players can go to the screens to find out who the next opponent will be. Off course, you do not play “Stairway to heaven” by Led Zeppelin or “Child in time” by Deep Purple, because that would take to long, but songs by Abba or Queen are suitable: nice 4-5 minute songs that everybody knows makes you feel good. Vishy Anand feels the adrenaline flow if he hears music by “Queen” before the game and Peter Svidler has told us that he has been humming “There must be some way out of here”, a line from the Bob Dylan song “All along the watchtower” in his game against GM Curt Hansen. In this report you will find “chess lines” from famous and non-famous chess songs between the rounds. Click on the “live-button”, put a nice CD in your player and enjoy the games!

When Bobby Fischer´s plane touches the ground
He´s gonna take those Russian guys and play them out of town
Playing for blood, as grandmasters should
(Prefab Sprout: Swoon)

The first rounds 1-3: looking for surprises

In the shark basin, also known as Ordix Open, with so many grandmasters, internationals masters there is a fair chance for the amateur to play against a top player. In the first rounds it is always nice to look for surprises- it is a malicious joy to look for games in which a grandmaster stumbles. In the second round, Ruslan Ponomariov was the first victim: he was lucky to escape with a draw against Henning Silber (2307). “Pono”, who won his first world championship title when he was 11 (he won the U12 World championship) originally only wanted to play the FiNet Open, but decided to stay two more days to play the Ordix Open. Alexander Morozevich had to play against three women in the first three round: WFM Bergit Brendel, WGM Elvira Berend and WGM Natalia Zhukova. He won his first two games but drew against Zhukova. There are more strong women playing in the Open: Elizabeth Pähtz, Victoria Cmilyte and of course world champion Antoanetta Stefanova. She lost half a point against Ferdinand Niebling, a senior-player from Frankfurt-West. IM Boris Margolin shocked GM Peter Heine-Nielsen. GM Luke McShane lost against Berthold Bartsch. But with 156 player with an international title, every round is tough. Look at these figures: 69 GM, 44 IM, and 43 FM!

Bobby Fischer beat Spassky in Iceland in ´72
I know a girl who´s better looking but thinks like Bobby Fischer too
When Bobby Fischer was a kid they knew he was a prodigy
I know a girl who´s somewhat older but no less of an authority
I wish I had the smarts to understand her charts
If I don´t concentrate she´ll have me in a checkmate.
(Lazy Susan: Bobby Fischer)

Round 4 and 5: Natural selection

After the first three rounds, the natural selection in the Ordix world takes place: the grandmasters now really have to fight hard for their points. And since a lot of the top players also played the FiNet Open, sometimes the players meet again. Etienne Bacrot, who started off so well in the Chess960 Open met Artur Yusupov again in the fourth round and won again. Alexander Grishuk, who won the tournament last year, still has 100%. He won in teh fourth round against Igor Glek. After Interesting for German kiebitzers: the pairing between the German players Eric Lobron and Rustem Dautov. Lobron always plays very well in the Ordix Open, last year he shared second place but Dautov won this game. Rustemov lost his game in the fourth round against German FM Gerd Euler.

After five rounds we have a handful of players with a perfect score: Grishuk, Bacrot, Karjakin, Ehlvest, Georgiev and Dautov. More than two hands full off sharks, excuse me, grandmasters with 4,5 points are patiently waiting for their chance on the second day. Among them players like Vaganjan, Rublevsky and Zvaginsev. Stefanova is doing very well, she won in round four against Epishin and has 4,5 points as well. . Ponomariov drew for the second time, in round five against Jozsef Pinter and Morozevich lost an expensive point against Bogdan Lalic. You can find all the results and standings by clicking on the links on the right hand side of this page.

And tomorrow at 10 o´clock the Queen song : “The show must go on” will sound...

Rounds 6-8 : Time for coffee, time for chess

It's a beautiful day
The sun is shining
I feel good
And no-one's gonna stop me now, oh yeah
Queen-It´s a beautiful day

Playing chess at 10 o´clock on a Sunday morning: for amateurs and professionals alike not the most favourite time, to say the least. On the terrace of the Hilton Hotel 15 minutes before the first game of the day the players drink a last cup of coffea. In the sixth round the early start obviously favoured young players. Grishuk, Karjakin and Bacrot scored their 6th win in a row and they still have a 100% score. The best rated French player already scored 7 out of 7 in theFiNet Open, can he do the same in the Ordix Open?! Rublevsky seemed to have slept well, he played a beautiful game against Antoaneta Stefanova, (look at the games section to download the top games) and is one of the secret favourites for first price. Zvaginsev and Vaganjan won their games as well. Ruslan Ponomariov had a terrible start: he lost against IM Carsten Volke and now has to win the rest of the games today to win a price!

In the seventh round Grishuk and Bacrot battled it out and the winner of the Ordix Open 2003 once again showed that he wants to bring home the title again. And the young Russian played a very good game, Bacrot never even had a chance to win half a point. With his seventh win in a row, Grishuk now leads the field alone, because Karjakin lost against Rublevsky with the white pieces. The Germans are doing fine in this tournament, Arkadi Naiditsch could maintain his good form from Dortmund by winning his game, Alexander Graf has 6 points as well. What about our Chess960 champion Zoltan Almasi? He also plays fine chess in position 518-the classical position-and scored 6 points so far. Maybe he can celebrate a double victory in the end?

In the eight round some of the top boards took an extra lunchbreak to save energy for the important last three rounds: 8 draws on the first 10 boards. As the Ordix Open tournaments in the past have proven is the fact that a fantastic score after 8 rounds is not enough for victory. Fortunately there are enough players who battle it out until the last second. In the game Bologan-Pelletier the electronic clock showed 0.00 for white and 0.00 for black. A draw was agreed! Ponomariov had to play against Stefanova and won, and Alexander Morozevich is back in business with a win over Klaus Bischoff.

Round 9-10 Moneytime in Mainz !

Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man's world
Aha-ahaaa
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
It's a rich man's world
Abba- Money Money Money

Its´s moneytime in Mainz! Chess knowledge and nerves of steel are needed if you want to take home a piece of the Ordix money cake. Leader Grishuk almost lost against Sadvakasov but saved a draw: stalemate! Vaganjan keeps on scoring, he won against Rublevsky and shares the lead with Grishuk with 8 points. Morozevich, Bacrot and Dautov won their games and now have 7,5 points. In the penultimate round Grishuk won another game and now has an unbelievable score: 9 out of 10! It will come to a showdown in the last round against Morozevich. The winner of the Biel tournament has 8,5 points after winning his game with the black pieces against Sadvakasov. Zoltan Almasi will not win the "double" in Mainz. The FiNet Open winner lost against Greenfeld, who now has 8,5 points. In the endgame for the Ukranian youth championship the young Sergei Karjakin won against Ruslan Ponomariov. Let´s not forget: Pono is still only 20 years old! Rustem Dautov still has chances to win the tournament: he won against Danish hope Heine-Nielsen and also has 8,5 points.

Round 11- The final battle

Morozevich (8,5) and Grishuk (9) play the final of the Ordix Open 2004! They really play chess and wanted to win the tourney. On the second board Greenfeld (8,5) and Dautov (8,5) made a draw playing only 6 moves in 31 seconds. Imagine: you have the one in a lifetime possibility to win the Ordix Open. By winning the final game you can win a lot of money, the shared Ordix title and what is even more important : prestige! Sponsors, organisers and hundreds of spectators in the hall and on the Internet were angry after the "game".

"I was too tired to attack in the last game", Greenfeld replied . "I did not see a chance to win with black in the last round", Dautov said. The players knew beforehand that the Ordix Open is one of the toughtest tournaments in the world and when we look at the first 40 boards in the last round, we can see that only 7 (seven!) game sended in a draw. For almost all players it was the 22nd game in four days: they obviously had the energy to battle it out to the last move. Prominent players like Grishuk could not understand why the players did not want to win the tournament ("in the long run it will damage the players") and Alexei Shirov said:"You always have to play when there is a chance to win the tournament like this"

Morozevich and Grishuk tried to play a real game, but "Moro" could not find a way to get an advantage. Grishuk was even a bit better in the end and that is why Alexander M. Offered a draw to Alexander G. With 9,5 points Grishuk is once again winner of the Ordix Open. It is very hard to win the Ordix, it is even more difficult to win the event twice! And what is even more impressive, Grishuk did not lose a single game in his Ordix tournaments. 16 wins, 6 draws. He is a hot candidate to challenge Vishy Anand next year in a match in Mainz!

Grishuk´s reaction after he finished the last game: "I was lucky in my game against Sadvakasov, it was actually completey lost, but somehow I escaped with a draw. In my game against Vaganjan I bluffed. With only a few minutes on the clock I sacrificed a piece and my opponent had to think for a while. He lost a lot of time in that position and in the end he even lost on time. Off course, I would like to play against Vishy next year, that would be a real challenge. Finally I would like to say that I do not understand Dautov and Greenfeld. If you need the money, I can imagine that they want to secure a good place. But in the long end, it is unprofitable. My best game was the last game of the first day, against Baklan. That was really good, high quality chess".

Here is the game:

Grischuk - Baklan
CCM4 - ORDIX Open Mainz

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Qb6 7.Ne2 a5 8.c3 a4 9.g3 Nc6 10.Bh3 g6 11.0-0 h5 12.Rb1 Be7 13.Be3 Qa6 14.Re1 b5 15.Bf1 Qb7 16.Rc1 a3 17.b3 c4 18.b4 Nxb4 19.cxb4 Bxb4 20.Bd2 Be7 21.Rb1 b4 22.f5 gxf5 23.Nf4 Ra6 24.h4 Rc6 25.Be3 Qb6 26.Ng5 Ba6 27.Nxh5 c3 28.Qf3 c2 29.Rbc1 Bxf1 30.Rxf1 Rc3 31.Ng7+ Kf8 32.Nxf5 Bxg5 33.hxg5 exf5 34.Qxf5 Ke7 35.Qxf7+ Kd8 36.e6 Qd6 37.Bf4 Qe7 38.Qxe7+ Kxe7 39.exd7 Kxd7 40.Kg2 Rhc8 41.g6 Rg8 42.Bd2 Rc4 43.Rf7+ Kc6 44.g7 Kb5 45.Bh6 Rxd4 46.Rxc2 Rc4 47.Rd2 1-0
Congratulations Alexander !