World Seniors 2015 Italy 10-22 Nov

[Alan Borwell]

Well done Craig and Roddy to be top of the leaderboards in their respective World Senior Championships - tough games today with Black but 4/4 are great starts! Well done also to Douglas in notching up a win.

[andyburnett]

Excellent play so far from our boys Keep up the good work!

[Alastair White]

A tough ask for both Roddy and Craig today.

Roddy's opponent Eduardas Rosentalis is a very strong GM who has played top board for Lithuania at the Olympiads, and more recently when they won th World Senior Teams in Vilnius in 2014. Given any sort of playable position he can grind it out for the full point so Roddy will need to be in top form. At least he is White again.

Craig's Opponent, Vladimir Okhotnik (Another strong GM, originally Ukranian, now lving in France) won this event a few years back and is the second seed for this one. Craig is Black again but he won't have been surprised to see c3 against the Sicilan - after all his opponent has written a book about it.

Play well, guys ( I don't much believe in 'luck' in chess).

[Alastair White]

After 10 moves Roddy has a space advantage but Rosentalis will soon hit back in the centre. Craig is at least equal but that's the way his opponent plays.

[Alastair White]

At move 20 or so both of the GMs are trying to grimd their opponents down. Roddy is still OK I think but Craig may be slightly worse. (EDIT - not really I now thimk he'still PK. But he is getting short of time.

[Alastair White]

Looks like curtains for Craig as Okhotnik 'bltzes' him in Craig's time trouble and he drops the exchange. Can't see any compensation.

Rosentalis reduced to shuffling his pieces around to no great effect, no doubt hoping Roddy will make a mistake. So far, he hasn't but is not doing anything active either so maybe hoping for a repetition.

[robin moore]

Just tuned in. At first glance Roddy looks as though he can move his knight at b5 back and forward to c7 but that last move of black's (g5) suggests that Rozentalis, at least, is after the full point.

[Alastair White]

Move 48 - finally Rosentalis's grinding has induced an error. If Roddy had played 48.Ka2 he might have been OK. Now he's in trouble because there are several threats. 49. Ka2 is still forced, but is not great now. 49.Rf2 is hopeless - Rosentalis has 49...Qa8! winning.

[Alastair White]

And he's missed it! Now Roddy might get away with it...

But unfortunately Roddy;s time trouble led to further blunders and a loss. So close...

[Alastair White]

Very tough at the top; but both Craig and Roddy are still near the top of the leaderboard. And it looks like both Douglas and Jim both won today, to get to 3/5 and 2.5/5, along with our good friends Jan Rooze (unbeaten on 4/5) and Tony Ashby (3.5/5). Plenty more to come.