by Assi Philosoph
In the 6th round, and the first of the second day, Svidler and Ivanchuk continued their run, winning smoothly against Gorshtein and Postny, and opening a gap of 1.5 points from Smirin, the 3rd place holder, with only 3 rounds to go.
However, in the 7th round, things started to go wrong for Ivanchuk. In his game against Van Foreest, he got a position with a piece for two pawns, but his opponent played very energetically in the endgame, putting the exposed Black’s king in a delicate situation.
Van Foreest – Ivanchuk 8th round
White played 39.e5+! opening the files against the king and taking advantage of the temporary passivity of Black’s b6 rook …dxe5 40.fxe5+ Kxe5? the pressure worked 41.Bf7 Rf8 to defend the rook with 41…Rbb8 was better still, now it’s just a forced win 42.Re1+ Kd6 43.Rf6+ Kc7 44.Rxe7+ Kd8 45.Rxb6 Kxe7 46.Rxb5 Rxf7 47.Rxc5 and Ivanchuk resigned.
Ivanchuk dropped the lead in the last third of the tournament
Svidler, who defeated Postny, took a solo lead with 6 out of 7. And, after drawing in the 8th round, he guaranteed the first place with one round still to go. Even though the winner was already known, the 8th round brought a lot of exciting games, since other players kept fighting to finish in the highest place possible. In the following game, Eljanov took a risky decision, which seriously compromised his king.
Rodshtein – Eljanov round 8
25…g5? as a response, White immediately took advantage of the new dark squares’ weaknesses, combining the knight and the queen 26.Nh5 Rc6 27.Qc3 Qe5 28.Rd8! and Black resigned.
On the same topic of dark squares, Boruchovsky had a great finish against Smirin, also combining the queen, the knight, and the rooks on the ‘d’ file, like Rodshtein.
Boruchovsky – Smirin round 8
36.Ne8! Qe5 37.Qxe5 and Smirin resigned.
Boruchovksy, after having only 1.5 points at the end of the first day, amazingly won all 4 games of the second day. He jumped from the bottom of the ranking list to a second shared place, collecting victories against all compatriots from his own country.
Boruchovsky, 4 out of 4 in the second day
Two other players shared second. One was Van Foreest, who, after losing in the first round to Postny, made a great recovery with 5.5 points without losing anymore. The other was Daniil Dubov, who also lost the first round to Ido Gorshtein, before finishing the tournament with two victories over the leaders of the first day, Ivanchuk and Svidler. Here is his short win over Vasyl in the penultimate round.
Ivanchuk – Dubov round 8
In the diagram position, after 19…axb3, he played 20.Rxf7 Qxg5 21.Rxd7, but following Bxd4 resigned in view of 22.Qxd4 bxc2+ 23. Kxc2 Qf5+ with a fork. We often overlook tactics combined with the exchange of a good fianchetto bishop for a knight, since, strategically, we usually don’t expect such an exchange.
Here are the final rankings:
Summarizing the points, the invited foreign players showed a superior performance over the locals, with a shared total of 27 points against 18 points of the Israelis (50% more).
Peter Svidler, led from the beginning till the end
Jorden Van Foreest and Daniil Dubov, finished 2nd and 3rd
In the open tournament, the young Israeli GM Yahli Sokolovski won smoothly with 8 points, showing excellent technique in his games, and proving that he is in great shape. In second place was GM Dan Zoler, with the same number of points but the worst tiebreak, and in shared 3rd place with 7.5 points David Gorodetzky, Lucas Van Foreest, Eytan Rozen, and Guy Levin.
GM Yahli Sokolovski, the winner of Jerusalem open
Dan Zoler, who, like Sokolovsky, finished without a loss, had an instructive attack in the 7th round against GM Boris Kantsler.
Dan Zoler – Boris Kantsler round 7
After White piled up on the queenside, Black took the opportunity to Greek Gift his opponent.
23…Bxh2+! 24.Kxh2 Ng4+ 25.Kg1 Qh4 26.Bb5 d4! the bishop joins the attack 27.exd4 Qh2+ 28. Kf1 Qxg2+ 29.Ke2 Qxf2+ 30.Kd3 c4+! blocking the king’s escape 31.Bxc4 Qf3+ and Black won in a few moves.
GM Dan Zoler, a Greek Gift to the audience
And here is the list of special categories winners:
1st under 2400: Alexey Streltsov 2nd under 2400: Boris Kantsler
1st under 2300: Yosef Gurevich 2nd under 2300: Peter Gokhvat
1st under 2200: Leonardo Leonoff 2nd under 2200: Mojsey Khodeev
1st under 2000: Asaf Davidovich 2nd under 2000: Itai Gal On
1st under 1800: Omer Ben-Gera 2nd under 1800: Beeri Yehuda
1st under 1600: Noam Printak 2nd under 1600: Itay Dayan
1st Junior (under 18y): Yonathan Uritsky 2nd Junior (under 18y): Ilan Schnaider
1st Female: Dana Kochavi 2nd Female: Noga Orian
1st Senior (+65): Yehuda Gruenfeld 2nd Senior (+65): Leon Lederman
It was a very enjoyable chess event, the type of tournament that the Israeli community had missed, combining both top players and a multitude of chess lovers who came to compete and enjoy the atmosphere. The event was also an important pause from all the suffering in the country since October 7th, and, as Alon Cohen, the director of the event, said in the closing ceremony:
"No cultural and sporting event in Israel can be perfect as long as there are 101 hostages in Gaza, our heart is in Gaza."
See you tomorrow at the simultaneous event!