Ács, Harikrishna, win György Marx Memorial

This tournament, held in commemoration of the famous physicist György Marx, is intended to give the most talented young local grandmasters an opportunity to gain experience. The main patron of the tournament is József Kovács, the director-general of Nuclear Power Plant Ltd. Paks. The venue is College of Paks, Dózsa György str. 95, Paks.

Round ten report (final)

With a final round victory over Viktor Korchnoi Hungarian GM Peter Ács was able to catch the leader, Pentala Harikrishna, who drew his black game against Csaba Balough. "Hari", who would have been first on normal tiebreak criteria, as used by our table generator below, had to concede victory to Ács, who took first place by virtue of more wins (five to Harikrishna's three).

This event was held under the "Sofia Rules": players can offer a draw in the first 40 moves only with arbiter's permission and in special cases. The result can be seen in the draw statistics, with only 13 of 30 games ending without a decision (43%). White won 37% of the games, Black 20%.

Before we come to the pictorial part of our report we must supply a very important piece of information: how to pronounce the name of the winner. The vowel is long, as in the "aah" you say to a doctor (or the British "car" or "bath"). That is why the name is correctly written Ách, the accent denoting that it is the long version of the vowel. The consonant combination "cs" is pronounced as in "March" or "arch", which incidentally comes very close to the full pronoun cation of Peter's surname, when spoken by the British.

In the front it is Balogh vs Harikrishna, who is watching Krochnoi vs Ács in the background

The tournament decider: Viktor Korchnoi vs Peter Ács. This final game gives chess amateurs a splendid lesson in mini-combinations and discovered attacks.

Korchnoi,V (2610) - Ács,P (2530) [D27]
V Gyorgy Marx Mem Paks HUN (10), 15.08.2007
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.e3 a6 6.Bxc4 c5 7.0-0 b5 8.Bd3 Bb7 9.a3 Nbd7 10.Qe2 Bd6 11.Bc2 Qc7 12.Rd1 0-0 13.h3 h6 14.e4 cxd4 15.Nxd4 Bh2+ 16.Kh1 Be5 17.Be3 Nb6 18.Bb3 Nxe4 19.Nxe4 Bxe4

20.Bxh6. Discovering an attack on the unprotected black bishop on e4. 20...Qb7. Protecting the bishop. 20...gxh6 21.Qxe4 would leave Black's kingside badly exposed and would attract the white pieces to launch a ferocious attack. 20...Bxg2+ was also an option for Black. 21.f3 Rad8 22.Be3 Bd5

Now the black bishop on e5 is unprotected. Do you see the petite combinaison? 23.Nxe6 Bxe6 24.Rxd8 Rxd8 25.Bxe6 (the white Bishop on b3 was hanging) 25...Bf6. 25...fxe6 26.Bxb6 and White has the piece back with a nice extra pawn. 26.Bb3 Nc4 27.Bxc4 bxc4 28.Qxc4 Qxb2 29.Ra2 Qe5 30.Bf4 Qe1+ 31.Kh2 Bd4 0-1. Korchnoi resigned.

The position is in no way lost, White can easily defend. What on earth happened? Apparently Korchnoi, who had 20 minutes on his clock (vs just five minutes for Peter Ács), did not see the defending move 32.Qe2! The tournament arbiter Sandor Videki tells us that in the second half of the tournament Viktor had medical problems with his eyes – and here it resulted in a rare moment of chess blindness for him.

Spectators watching the action from a theater balcony (earlier round)

At 13 she is able to give strong grandmasters a headache: Hou Yifan vs Ferenc Berkes

The winner, Peter Ács, with his trophy and a tidy number of additional rating points

A group photo with Balogh, Harikrishna, Berkes, Ács, Hou Yifan and Korchnoi

Some day, young lady, there will be one of these in China, and your name will be on it! Hou Yifan and her trainer Yu Shaoteng admire the memorial.