Chess

The Montreal "World Chess Tournament" took place from January 15th to 22nd in the Centre Saint-Laurent: a ten player all-play-all averaging a very healthy 2495 (category 10).

There were three Canadians IMs: Thomas Roussel-Roozmon, who was 17 a week before the tournament began, Jean Hebert and Eric Lawson; and, as you might expect in Quebec a couple of French grandmasters Igor-Alexandre Nataf and Arnaud Hauchard. While the other five comprised four more grandmasters - Dmitry Jakovenko (Russia), Victor Mikhalevski (Israel), John Fedorowicz (USA) and Rogelio Antonio (Phillipines) and IM Eugene Perelshteyn (USA).

Whereas high scores are usually essential in order to win Open tournaments, in which the top seeds normally start with a large plus score against weaker opposition, big scores in closed events are comparatively rare. However, Jakovenko totally ran away with the tournament dropping just two draws against Roussel-Rouzmon and Pelerelshteyn for a massive 8/9.

He was followed by Mikhalevski on 6; Nataf made 5.5, Perelshtein and Hauchard 5 and the rest were all on fifty percent or less.

Jakovenko has a fairly technical style and indeed three of his seven wins took over 70 moves but he did score one quick victory highlighting the importance of opening preparation in a computer-dominated age.

In this slightly odd line Black loses tempi with his bishop to prevent White from castling long. 19.Ne5! is the only move but it had been seen before and indeed Antonia only deviated from a game in the 2003 Hungarian Championship, in which Zoltan Gyimesi played the much better 20...Nd5 but lost to Peter Acs after a hard fight, when he played 20...Bxd2?.

This however, proved utterly disastrous and after 23.Nxf7! Rogelio was summarily mated.

Dmitry Jakovenko v Rogelio Antonio

Montreal 2005 (round 6)

Caro Kann

1.e4 c6

2.d4 d5

3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6

7.Nf3 Nd7 8.h5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 e6 11.Bf4 Qa5+ 12.Bd2 Bb4 13.c3 Be7 14.c4 Bb4 15.Ne4 Ngf6 16.Nd6+ Ke7 17.c5 b6 18.0-0 bxc5 19.Ne5 Nxe5 20.dxe5 Bxd2 21.exf6+ gxf6 22.Rad1 Bf4 23.Nxf7 Kxf7 24.Qg6+ 1-0