The Reykjavik Open 2013 starts today, 2/19, at 16:30 local time. Here's a link to the participant list, which looks quite strong. By my count, there are 19 players rated 2600+ (5 rated 2700+). Here are a few of the more notable names, in order of descending rating.

http://www.reykjavikopen.com/info/participants/

-Giri
-Vachier-Lagrave
-Navara
-Cheparinov

One of the most interesting participants, to me at least, and someone I'll be closely watching is Yaacov Norowitz. For those that have ICC memberships, they'll quickly recognize him as YaacovN. He's a very entertaining player that plays offbeat openings and is a phenomenal blitz player. He has no FIDE title, just a USCF NM, but his USCF rating is currently 2601 and his FIDE is 2432. He's easily IM strength, but I have no idea why he hasn't pushed to get titles. Maybe he just plays for fun. Imagine that Anyway, I really hope he does well.

By the way, time controls are 90 mins for 40 moves, followed by 30 mins for the remainder of the game. There is a 30 second increment for every move, starting from move one.

First big upset from the tournament, headline below. Very nice.

Soren Jensen rated 1909 beat IM Frode Urkedal 2473 in only 21 moves using the Muzio in the King’s Gambit!!! Now that’s kicking it oldschool!

Yaacov Norowitz is an Orthodox Jew, so he doesn't play between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday. That limits norm opportunities.

Holy crap. Ding Liren, FIDE 2709, drew with Mihajlov Sebastian, FIDE 2059. Memorable moment for the lower rated.

Hmm Mihajlov
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1608951

How does this guy beat and draw such strong players? I googled him and it turns out he's a little kid. Impressive.

This tournament has so many games, so I've only really looked at Cheparinov's. If you aren't familiar with him, he was Topalov's second for a while, and the supposed finder of 12. Nxf7 in this game: Topalov v Kramnik, 2008. It's also fun to sometimes see just how much better 2700 is compared to 2500.

And so that takes us to Cheparinov v Shulman (hopefully not just riddled with errors instead of being somewhat impressive). I thought the game was already interesting, but then we reach the position after 36. Rh1-h5:



The black pieces really seem to have trouble keeping the king safe. I was just horrible at predicting the next moves:

Holy crap. That game was nuts.

Another aspect of it that confused me was 20. Ne6 Bxe6 21. dxe6. That basically loses the pawn on e6. What was it for? Getting the other knight on d5, getting rid of black's LSB, inhibiting black's mobility in some other way? It's not the kind of thing I think I would have gone for.

Btw, if you liked that one, I was looking at some of his other games, and this one had an oddly similar feel: Cheparinov v Stellwagon, 2005

That Ne6 idea is a motif that appears in the most popular line of the Bayonet Attack of the KID. It's certainly not a natural, intuitive move. In the KID line, white plays Ne6 to force black to capture with the LSB, which is crucial in the kingside attack. It also frees up the d5 square and allows white to open the center and expose black's king. Plus, that pawn on e6 can be surprisingly difficult to capture. Here's a good, illustrative KID game.

Shirov-Radjabov, Linares 2004

In that Cheparinov-Shulman game, the idea is similar, but all of the elements aren't there. White isn't threatening to pry open the center right away, but the knight is very strong on d5 and black has to worry about annoying e7 tricks at some point. Plus, here, the pawn on e6 really keeps that knight on h6 all bottled up.

The more I learn about chess, the more I realize how great GMs (and all strong players, really) are about recognizing familiar themes but noticing the subtle differences between the original position and the one in their game.

And thanks for posting that other game too. Cheparinov is a stud.

I'm very familiar with this, actually, as well as those Radjabov games when he led a little Bayonet comeback. Of course, I never made any such connection here, though.

Just wait until you hear him talk:

I got YaacovN as being top 20 in the world.

It's great to see him bringing elite levels of DACHA to the Reykjavik Open.

I know you are a fanboy but top 20, come on now

What is DACHA?

YaacovN wins another nice game today as black against GM Henrik Danielsen. I haven't looked at it in depth, but it really looks like a pretty sharp, complicated game. Should be a fun one to go over.

Danielsen-Norowitz 0-1

All-inMcLovin is not coming on anything!

I once was like you, lost and confused as far as what DACHA (or DASHA) was.
So I reached out to Yaacov Norowitz, and inquired kindheartedly.

Yaacov told me that DACHA simply means "Summer home". My interpretation of that is that it's a great place that you enjoy being in/living in/etc. It's a place of strength and enjoyment.

Achieving DACHA in chess now made perfect sense to me.

I nodded my head, shook the legend's hand, and thanked him for making not just my chess better, but my life more complete.

I've got a question about this Navara game if anyone has a few minutes:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1711667

Did White miss a win by not playing 30 Qf6, or am I just missing something?

Qc1+ wins the pawn on h6

In Russian, Dacha (not Dasha, which is a girl's name) also means "giving." If I heard dacha in relation to chess, I'd assume it meant being the one fighting for the initiative rather than defending - giving rather than receiving.

There's also an expression to do something "with full otdacha" which basically means to give something your all.

Where did all this dacha stuff come from anyway?

YaacovN secured an IM norm after 9 rounds with 1 round to play. Well, today in round 10 he beat GM Yuriy Kuzubov, FIDE 2622, with the white pieces to finish at 7.5/10 and a 2550+ rating performance. Great tournament for Yaacov. He'll be an IM in no time.

top 20 in the world, too.

Eljanov, Wesley So and Amin Bassem shared place #1. So also crossed the 2700 mark for the first time.

from Yaacov himself. I thought that was a self evident truth from a world top 20 player.