Setting the Scene for the Showdown

Ok, first off an explanation of what happened with the live coverage and how my morning totally sucked!

So, when I got a copy of the pairings at 9:15 am, I was very happy at having 45 minutes to set up the live broadcast system, which also entails configuring the onsite live coverage/electronic demo board system for spectators at the event. I configured the MonRoi software, input the pairings and got all the little devices ready and started. By 9:45 am I was sat twiddling my thumbs waiting for the players to arrive so I could give them their MonRoi's.

At about 9:58 am, Sunil Weeramantry (Hikaru Nakamura's step father) comes over to me and says "Bill changed the pairings for the top boards." Apparently Sunil had complained about the initial pairings and Bill concluded that he was correct and so he changed them. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except when the round is about to start in 2 minutes flat and the system has already been started! Here are the two sets of pairings for your perusal.

9:15 am Version
1. Nakamura - Mitkov
2. Zapata - Petrosian
3. Yermolinsky - Kolev

9:58 am Version
1. Nakamura - Kolev
2. Mitkov - Petrosian
3. Zapata - Yermolinsky

Wallchart

You can make up your own mind as to what pairings you would have given, however, either way it made my morning a nightmare as I couldn't manage to get the MonRoi system reconfigured in time to get the new pairings in. Add to that the fact that someone had knocked out the power cable to the MonRoi receiver, meaning some games were started without the MonRoi system knowing about them, and you can start to get an idea of what was happening.

Then, yes there's more, I had the MonRoi software crash on my computer. Not once, not twice but three times! This means that there is an interruption in it picking up the moves from games and so I have to then go and see what the moves were and manually enter them. This doesn't happen too often, just on the days where everything is going wrong.

Anyway, in the end we finished with 6 games out of the top 12 being live broadcast and I eventually managed to get my computer stable enough to stop the system crashing... at least fingers crossed, touch wood. The other MonRoi's are in use on the top boards and so once the games are finished I will ensure they get entered into the PGN database.

Ok, enough venting, now to the real action. Boards 1 and 2 caused all the excitement in this round as the top two seeds in the tournament, GMs Nakamura and Petrosian, both beat their opponents, GMs Kolev and Mitkov respectively, with relative ease. Both players now stand at the top of the standings with 5 points and should (yes, there's no pairing predictions here) meet each other in the final round as GMs Zapata and Yermolinsky drew on board 3 and will stay a half-point behind the two leaders.

Also back a half-point behind the leaders are GMs Gurevich and Akobian. Gurevich overcame the tough GM Shabalov while Akobian dispatched of GM Paragua with yet another nice combination. Despite the cold he is suffering from, Akobian seems to be tactically sharp in this event.

Also coming in with 4.5 points is GM (yes, GM!) Josh Friedel.  Josh beat GM Yury Shulman in round 6 and, according to my calculations, that leaves him at +15.6 for this event and gives him the rating points he needed to confirm his GM title. Congratulations Josh!

One quick thing to mention here before we start the final round is that in the event of a tie, the top two players on tie-breaks will play a one-off Armageddon blitz tie-breaker to determine the actual Champion and a little extra pocket change. We'll hopefully have live coverage of that game so stay tuned.

I must commend the players on their fighting games. Obviously, with some much at stake, it would be easy for them all to agree to quick draws. The only one that comes to mind for me was when Mitkov and Kolev drew in round 4. Not a bad ratio considering how many games have been played between the top GMs in the event! Let's hope the final round is as exciting as the rest of the tournament has been so far.

On a final note, the games that were missing from the live coverage have been added to the PGN database.

Chris Bird