Fred McKim
11-22-2011, 12:22 PM
Three rounds and plenty of action at the Tal Memorial, since I last checked in (playing in the PEI Open over the weekend curtailed any of this activity). However, despite complicated games with lots of interesting chances the games have all been drawn. This means that Carlsen, Aronian, Karjakin, and Nepomniachtchi are all still tied for 1st. Catch the games tomorrow on any of the live servers starting at 7am ET.
This is the rest day at the Women's World Championship. Despite spending a few hours overnight in the hospital with stomach pains (Monday), Hou Yifan was able to play yesterday with the black pieces and win a second game from Humpy Koneru to take a commanding 4-2 lead with only 4 games to go.
The World Youth deserves it's own column, but I'll take a moment to mention some of the top scoring Canadian players. Yesterday was the rest day, so they're back in action with round 5 today. The kid with the hardest name to rembmer in Canada has a perfect 4-0 score. Olivier-Kenta Chiku-Ratte, who appeared on my radar earlier this year has been on a tear since then, and ranked 8th coming into the event, is now alone in 1st in the U12. No doubt he'll have some tough competition for the remaining 5 rounds.
Michael Song (ranked 12th) is also looking good in that group with a score of 3.5. Unrated Segrey Noritsyn (yes, Nikolay's little brother) has 3.5 in the U8. Qiyu Zhou (ranked 25th) has been hot back at home lately and has 3.5 in the U12G. Probably our most experienced player is Richard Wang (ranked 15th) who has been playing in tons of Internationals in Alberta the past couple of years against GM and IM level players. He has 3.5 in U14 action.
I'll just list the rest of the players currently sitting with 3/4 - Luke Pulfer (U8), Yuanchen Zhang (U10), Razvan Preotu (U12), James Fu (U14), Myriam Roy (U16G), and Loren Laceste (U18).
This is the rest day at the Women's World Championship. Despite spending a few hours overnight in the hospital with stomach pains (Monday), Hou Yifan was able to play yesterday with the black pieces and win a second game from Humpy Koneru to take a commanding 4-2 lead with only 4 games to go.
The World Youth deserves it's own column, but I'll take a moment to mention some of the top scoring Canadian players. Yesterday was the rest day, so they're back in action with round 5 today. The kid with the hardest name to rembmer in Canada has a perfect 4-0 score. Olivier-Kenta Chiku-Ratte, who appeared on my radar earlier this year has been on a tear since then, and ranked 8th coming into the event, is now alone in 1st in the U12. No doubt he'll have some tough competition for the remaining 5 rounds.
Michael Song (ranked 12th) is also looking good in that group with a score of 3.5. Unrated Segrey Noritsyn (yes, Nikolay's little brother) has 3.5 in the U8. Qiyu Zhou (ranked 25th) has been hot back at home lately and has 3.5 in the U12G. Probably our most experienced player is Richard Wang (ranked 15th) who has been playing in tons of Internationals in Alberta the past couple of years against GM and IM level players. He has 3.5 in U14 action.
I'll just list the rest of the players currently sitting with 3/4 - Luke Pulfer (U8), Yuanchen Zhang (U10), Razvan Preotu (U12), James Fu (U14), Myriam Roy (U16G), and Loren Laceste (U18).