International News Today - Oct 12, 2011

[Fred McKim]

A spectacular ending in Bilbao, in the final leg of the Grand Slam Final. Vassily Ivanchuk's insurmountable lead after round 6, was surmounted as Magnus Carlsen scored 8 points in his final 4 games, while Ivanchuk scored only 2 points. This set up a two game blitz match for the title, which Carlsen took 1.5-0.5. Anand, Aronian, and Nakamura all tied for 3rd place.

At the Saratov (RUS) Governor's Cup RR, Alexei Morozevich is continuing his return to form with a score of 5.5/6. He is followed by Peter Leko with 4. Top seed Ruslan Ponomariov is way back with 2.5.

Sergey Karjakin has a narrow 1/2 point lead going into the final round of the Karpov International. In fact after 8 of 9 rounds everyone else in the field has between 3.5 and 4.5. Etienne Bacrot and Fabiano Caruana share second.

[Kerry Liles]

A spectacular ending in Bilbao, in the final leg of the Grand Slam Final. Vassily Ivanchuk's insurmountable lead after round 6, was surmounted as Magnus Carlsen scored 8 points in his final 4 games, while Ivanchuk scored only 2 points. This set up a two game blitz match for the title, which Carlsen took 1.5-0.5. Anand, Aronian, and Nakamura all tied for 3rd place.

At the Saratov (RUS) Governor's Cup RR, Alexei Morozevich is continuing his return to form with a score of 5.5/6. He is followed by Peter Leko with 4. Top seed Ruslan Ponomariov is way back with 2.5.

Sergey Karjakin has a narrow 1/2 point lead going into the final round of the Karpov International. In fact after 8 of 9 rounds everyone else in the field has between 3.5 and 4.5. Etienne Bacrot and Fabiano Caruana share second.

Nakamura lost on time in one of his games (I believe it was the second last round?) where he thought he had made 40th move, asked the arbiter for confirmation and believed he got a "yes" nod, and went to get an orange juice refill... on his return to the board he had been flagged!!

Apparently, the arbiter is not allowed to confirm or deny (perhaps the players are not even permitted to ask), so Nakamura flagged. It seems he submitted an appeal immediately, but I presume it was rejected.

I expect this situation might be covered by Guert Gjisson in the next "Arbiters Corner" at chesscafe.com

[Fred McKim]

Nakamura lost on time in one of his games (I believe it was the second last round?) where he thought he had made 40th move, asked the arbiter for confirmation and believed he got a "yes" nod, and went to get an orange juice refill... on his return to the board he had been flagged!!

Apparently, the arbiter is not allowed to confirm or deny (perhaps the players are not even permitted to ask), so Nakamura flagged. It seems he submitted an appeal immediately, but I presume it was rejected.

I expect this situation might be covered by Guert Gjisson in the next "Arbiters Corner" at chesscafe.com

A friend had told me that he lost on time, but didn't know the cause. Mentioned it was odd, as the 40th move was kind of forced.

[Ken Craft]

A player shouldn't ask and an arbiter can't confirm.