Games from Aix-les-Bains

BY: BOBBY ANG

(An abridged version of Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 28 April 2011)

12th European Championship 2011
Aix-les-Bains, France
March 21-April 3, 2011

Final Standings
(according to tie-breaks)
1-4. GM Vladimir Potkin RUS 2653, GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek POL 2711, GM Judit Polgar HUN 2686, GM Alexander Moiseenko UKR 2673, 8.5/11
5-15. GM Francisco Vallejo Pons ESP 2707, GM Markus Ragger AUT 2614, GM Sebastien Feller FRA 2657, GM Peter Svidler RUS 2730, GM Rauf mamedov AZE 2667, GM Nikita Vitiugov RUS 2720, GM Sergei Zhigalko BLR 2680, GM Dmitry Jakovenko RUS 2718, GM Anton Korobov UKR 2647, GM Ernesto Inarkiev RUS 2674, GM Evgeny Postny ISR 2585, 8.0/11

Total Participants 409 players

Time Control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves after which another 30 minutes is added for the rest of the game. A 30-second increment is added after every move

The European Championship marked the spectacular return of Judit Polgar (in photo, courtesy of the tournament's official website).

Judit (born July 23, 1976) is the youngest of the Polgar sisters and the strongest female chessplayer ever. She reached as high as 8th in the list of the world’s top players (this was in 2005). Getting married and motherhood severely affected her chess. She still made sporadic appearances, but lack of practice showed, for example, in November 2008 she had a terrible result in the World Chess Blitz Championship in Almaty where, despite her reputation as among the top blitzers in the world, she finished last out of 16 players.

Anyway, in this tournament Judit started a bit slow, and after her round six loss to Ragger dropped to 38th place. She gathered her strength though and came back with four straight wins (against Pantsulaia, Guseinov, Lupulescu and Iordachescu) which not only was good enough for the bronze medal (first time a female had won a medal in the European Championship), but also gained her enough ELO points to once again attain the 2700+ roster of elite chessplayers.
Her form was sharp and efficient. There was the usual display of tactical wizardry:

Pantsulaia, Levan (2595) -- Polgar, Judit (2686) [A13]
12th ch-EUR Aix-les-Bains FRA (7), 28.03.2011
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In a post-tournament interview Judit indicated the following as her favorite game from the event -- a brilliantly played ending.

Polgar, Judit (2686) -- Guseinov, Gadir (2584) [B36]
12th ch-EUR Aix-les-Bains FRA (8), 30.03.2011
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