TWIC is 30. First issue 17th September 1994.
10th Tal Memorial 2016 (1)
Tal Memorial opens with a tribute to Mark Dvoretsky
Mark Crowther - Monday 26th September 2016
The first round of the Tal Memorial was overshadowed by the announcement of the passing of legendary trainer Mark Dvoretsky and started with a minute of silence.
Ian Nepomniachtchi was the only winner of the day when he used the Scotch to beat Evgeny Tomashevsky very quickly. The opening cannot have been a surprise but Tomashevsky took a lot of time in getting a bad position and resigned in 23 moves.
Peter Svidler seemed to have slightly the worse of the opening battle against Vladimir Kramnik but this provoked Kramnik into too violent a readction and after 18.Bxg5 sacrificing a piece to open up Kramnik's king-side Svidler had a huge advantage. Svidler just couldn't put Kramnik away and allowed his opponent back into the game, 44...Rxf5 left all three results in play and they drew in 66 moves.
The remaining games were less interesting. Anish Giri got a pleasant plus against Viswanathan Anand but the former champion defended well, Levon Aronian looked to have a little something out of the opening but the sequence 17.Rxc8 (probably not best) Rxc8 18.Bxd5 Kd6! at least equalised. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and his opponent Li Chao were both 10 minutes late, arriving together, but it was Mamedyarov as white who lost the time. They simplified to a draw fairly quickly.
Round 1 Standings: Nepomniachtchi 1pt, Aronian, Li, Mamedyarov, Anand, Gelfand, Giri, Svidler, Kramnik 0.5pts, Tomashevsky 0pts.
Round 2 1pm BST Tuesday 27th September: Kramnik-Li, Anand-Mamedyarov, Gelfand-Giri, Tomashevsky-Aronian, Svidler-Nepomniachtchi.
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