2019 Cairns Cup – Round 7
by GM Josh Friedel The 7th round saw two decisive results, but they were crucial ones. Gunina won a 4th game in a row and moved into clear first place, while Kosteniuk drew the worse side of a french and fell back to 2nd. The 3rd place player, GM Irina Krush, lost in convincing fashion […]
Replay
Replay
2019 Cairns Cup – Round 6
by GM Josh Friedel Today’s round was a truly insane. Krush and Kosteniuk drew an unclear game where both had chances, and the games Gunina-Paehtz, Dronavalli-Abdumalik, and Dzagnidze-Zatonskih all had many changes in evaluation throughout the game. Watching it live was a real edge-of-your-seat experience! Here are the results and a breakdown of today’s action. […]
2019 Cairns Cup – Round 5
by GM Josh Friedel The 5th round certainly didn’t lack excitement, and the three leaders continued to show their fine form by extending their respective leads. Valentina Gunina won a spectacular game, Irina Krush won an efficient one, and Kosteniuk won after an absolutely crazy battle. Anna Zatonskih recovered from a terrible pawn blunder, leaving […]
2019 Cairns Cup – Round 4
Similar to the opening round, round four saw four decisive results, with most of the victories coming with Black. Kosteniuk extended her lead by defeating GM Marie Sebag, but Gunina and Krush also won, so her lead is only by half a point. It was a dramatic day, with lots of pressure and more blunders […]
2019 Cairns Cup – Round 3
The third round had both of the extremes: Two games ended peacefully in short order, while the other three were quite complex. Former Women’s World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk showed her class with a nice victory over young IM Zhansaya Abdumalik, pulling ahead of her rivals with a score of 2.5/3. IM Anna Zatonskih and GM […]
Regulations
Regulations Format Summary The 2019 Champions Showdown shall be an exhibition event featuring five individual matches: Hikaru Nakamura vs. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Fabiano Caruana vs. Pentala Harikrishna, Wesley So vs. David Navara, Leinier Dominguez vs. Veselin Topalov and Sam Shankland vs. Richard Rapport. Over five days, the Players shall contest games at rapid and blitz time […]
Regulations
Regulations Format Summary The Cairns Cup shall be paired as a classical 10-player Round Robin event. Prompt Arrival: Players are expected to arrive promptly for their games. Players not at their board at the beginning of each round may receive a fine of $1,000 to be deducted from their prize for each occurrence. Players more […]
2019 Cairns Cup – Round 2
by GM Josh Friedel Today’s round was far less bloody than the first round, but it was certainly not short of interesting games. There were time scrambles, advantages passed back and forth, and plenty of other action. In the end, only GM Khotenashvili was able to break through and score a victory, thus bouncing back […]
2019 Cairns Cup – Round 1
by GM Josh Friedel At the opening ceremony of the Cairns Cup Tuesday evening, the players promised to do all they could to play fighting chess. They certainly didn’t disappoint. The first round of the Cairns Cup was a bloody affair, with most of the players taking lots of risk and playing aggressive chess. There […]