Round 8

With Ivanchuk defeating Miton and Harikrishna defeating Tiviakov, Ivanchuk now leads alone going into the final day at the International. Chucky, with a half point lead over Sergey and Harikrishna, has white against Harikrishna in round 9. Meanwhile, Tiviakov has white against the lowest rated player in the event, Canadian Pascal Charbonneau. So, a draw for Ivanchuk will guarantee him at least a share of first place.

Nigel Short scored his first victory in Round 8. Short had the black side of a Queen's Gambit Declined(D37) against Ukrainian Pavel Elyanov. Elyanov got into severe time pressure somewhere between move 30 and 40, and lost the thread of a complicated ending.

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Ivanchuk demolished Miton with a sacrificial attack when Miton forgot to protect his king.



Here, Ivanchuk played 25. Bxh2, and Kamil was forced to return the material with interest several moves later to avoid getting mated.

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Sutovsky won 'on class' against Bluvshtein. An instructive rook and pawn endgame.

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Harikrishna again displayed his endgame might, winning in 77 moves over Tiviakov.

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Charbonneau held on to draw against Kamsky. Charbonneau forced a series of exchanges to reach a theoretically draw minor piece ending.

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Pascal and Gata before their round 8 draw


An important game: Harikrishna v Tiviakov


Iweta Rajlich


Irina Krush

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