Ivanchuk's Career Best Win

By Arvind Aaron

To win a category 20 event by a wide 1.5-point margin is quite an achievement. Vassily Ivanchuk of Lvov, Ukraine did just that when he won the 4th MTel Masters Tournament with 8/10. It was a six player double all-play-all that ran from May 8-18 at the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia.

Ivanchuk, 1969-born like Anand beat all the players once, except Cheparinov whom he beat not once but twice. Needing a draw in the final round, he beat the lowest rated Cheparinov with the black pieces as well.

Ivanchuk's 2977 rating performance should be one of the greatest successes of all-time like Anatoly Karpov's win at Linares 1994. Topalov had a distinction score of 6.5/10 and a huge rating performance of 2841 but he was marginalised by Ivanchuk's amazing fireworks.

A former Linares champion, Ivanchuk is going to be remembered for this win more now. He plays chess non-stop in a calendar year and sometimes also accepts invitations from low category 14 events in venues at Cuba and Canada.

His marriage with WGM Alisa Galliamova from Kazan in Russia ended in divorce. His chess playing skills seemed rocked. However, since his marriage again, he is on tour non-stop and in great flow.

The third player to gain some Elo was Radjabov. Levon Aronian went without a victory. Bu however did not have that dismal record; he beat Topalov in the second encounter.

Final placings: 1 V. Ivanchuk (Ukr) 8/10, 2 V. Topalov (Bul) 6.5, 3 T. Radjabov (Aze) 5.5, 4 I. Cheparinov (Bul) 4, 5 Bu Xiangzhi (Chn) 3, 6 L. Aronian (Arm) 3.