Since the beginning of the week, both Smirin and Kobo have gained 3.5 points out of 4 in the last 4 rounds. They managed to break the balance in the closed tournament and now they are ahead of the other players by a full point. In the 7th round, Smirin won against Parkhov, the last undefeated player of the tournament, and Kobo won an instructive Sicilian Hedgehog game against Ginsburg in the 6th round:
Ginsburg,Gennadi (2400) – Kobo,Ori (2534)
GM Maccabiah 2022 Jerusalem, Israel – Round 6, 18.07.2022
The position below is after 32.Bh3
32..Nf2! Allowing to take on e6 with check and self-pinning the knight 33.Bxe6+ Kh8 34.Rf1 Bxg3
35.Qg4 This move doesn’t save the day 35…Bxh2+! 36.Kg2 forced [36.Kxh2 Nxg4+]
36…Qd2 Now it’s impossible to save the king 37.Qd4 Nd3+ and White resigned 0-1
A pleasant surprise was the first win of Alekseev, who even after losing the first round, made 5 consecutive short draws and finally played a full fight in the 7th round against Ginsburg, winning a tactical game. Below we present the conclusion of Smirin’s win from today.
Smirin,Ilia (2601) – Parkhov,Yair (2468)
GM Maccabiah 2022 Jerusalem, Israel – Round 7, 19.07.2022
Black pieces are quite restricted so White finds a simple and effective way to attack:
25.g4! Smirin shows why he is such a superb attacker. The idea is to open the H file.
25…Rfe8 26.g5 hxg5 27.Bxg5 Qd6 28.Qh3 Nb7 29.Qh4 White is preparing the rook lift and Black hardly can find a way to stop it or to counterplay. The game concluded:
29…Na5 30.Rf3 Bxh2+ 31.Kh1 Re2 32.Rh3 Kf8 33.Rxh2 Nb3 34.Bxf6 Qxf6 35.Qxf6 gxf6 36.Rh8+ Kg7 37.Rxe8 Rxe8 38.Re1 Rh8+ 39.Kg1 Rh5 40.Be4 Nd2 41.Kg2 1-0
In the open section, Yochay Vazana won against Moskovitch and Zilbershtein, remaining a full point ahead of 4 players who share second place. A comfortable position before the 2 upcoming rounds. In the junior tournament, there are 4 leading players with an equal number of points (4 out of 5): Kyle Lancman (USA), Ilya Zuev (ISR), Tomer Gilad (ISR) and Daniel Ser (LTU). A reminder that the junior tournament has only 7 rounds.
We recommend checking out the photo gallery of Dr. Mark Livshitz and Ritvo photography here:
http://www.maccabiahchess.co.il/photo-gallery-2022-2/
and here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VNMdAM4IT-rssUbiDDPBzixVtEVH0msM?usp=sharing