Saturday, July 17, 2010

2010 U.S. Women's Chess Championship - R7

Melekhina is going down to Krush.  Unbelievably to my eyes, she just gave up a rook early on, seeming to bet that she had a good attack king-side.  It didn't turn out that way, unfortunately.  For some time Krush-Melekhina was tracking Robson's game with Zhao and it was really wierd watching it online and listening to the commentary. 

Not much attention has been paid to the other games because of the interesting complication s of Krush-Melekhina and Zhao-Robson.  Last time there was commentary on Abby Marshall's game they thought she had a winning position.  Zatonskih is, also unbelievably, also seeming to be struggling against Marinello!  I don't know what the heck is happening, but I don't care.  The weather today got much better than expected, rather than worse!  I'm set up outside right now enjoying a breeze off the lake (from the northeast) rather than the forecasted furnace blast from the southwest; it's shady here and I've got the umbrella up; I'm also fully coated with super-duper strength bug spray because the mosquitoes are so bad. 

The back yard is raked in preparation either for cutting later this evening, although I may decide to watch a movie instead, or in preparation for the predicted severe storms that may blow through later this evening.  I don't know what's happening - perhaps I am morphing into a lizard woman.  The dew point is 61, which ordinarily makes me extremely uncomfortable, but I actually not only raked up the yard (albeit in 10 minute intervals with 20 minutes plus glasses of wine in between) and also pulled some more weeds (a never-ending battle) and I'm even thinking about chopping down that overgrown honeysuckle. 

Okay - I'm looking at the games now -- it's now 5:10 p.m. and Melekhina has resigned on move 34.  She played an extremely aggressive and risky game and paid the price when Krush found the best responsive moves.  I absolutely did not expect this from her, wow!  Tomorrow no rest for her, she's got another big game and she's battling for, probably, fourth place. 

Abrahamyan-Foisor is in big time trouble on move 27.  Foisor has 13 minutes left to whites's 4 minutes?  What the heck happened?  At one point it looked like Abrahamyan would wrap this game up with an overwhelming advantage.  Stay tuned.

Baginskaite-Zenyuk, B has like 4 minutes and Zenyuk has like 10 minutes - and they're on move 27.  Oy!  Black has a material advantage but I cannot tell you a thing about their relative board positions.  Suffice to say that whenever I think I understand a position, it turns out I was totally wrong, LOL!

Honestly, I do not understand why Zatonskih-Marinello is still going on - move 27?  What?  Zatonskih has 7 minutes and Marinello has 10 - this would be an incredible upset if Marinello can somehow pull out a draw - I'm not even going to mention the W word...

Rohonyan 6 minutes, Marshall 9 minutes, move 31 was just made by white.  Abby has an extra pawn.  Can she keep her end game technique together and pull off a win against the much more experienced Rohonyan?

Listening to the commentary, Finegold thinks Zatonskih's two bishops are really strong. 

Okay - I'm going to feed my chipmunks and squirrels now - will check back later on...

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