The fierce battle for first place continued in the 14th round of the St. Petersburg All-Russian Masters' tournament, with four of the five members of the leading quintet recording victories. Tourney front-runner Alexander Alekhine topped Alexander Evensohn to maintain his grip on first place, one half-point ahead of Alexander Flamberg, victor over Bernhard Gregory. Aron Niemzowitsch, who began the day in joint second position along with Flamberg, fell to third after he was held to a draw by Georg Salwe. Close behind Niemzowitsch come Grigory Levenfish in fourth place and Moishe Lowtzky in fifth, the former having taken the full point from Peter Evtifeev and the latter emerging victorious after a hard battle vs. Efim Bogoljubow. With three rounds remaining the top five Masters are arrayed in stair-step fashion at half-point intervals, as the reader may observe from the standings given below.
14th round results:
Alekhine 1-0 Evensohn
Flamberg 1-0 Gregory
Salwe ½-½ Niemzowitsch
Evtifeev 0-1 Levenfish
Lowtzky 1-0 Bogoljubov
Alapin ½-½ Znosko-Borovsky
Levitsky 0-1 Smorodsky
Taubenhaus ½-½ von Freymann
Eljaschoff 1-0 Lebedev
Standings after 14 rounds: Alekhine 11 1/2; Flamberg 11; Niemzowitsch 10 1/2; Levenfish 10; Lowtzky 9 1/2; Salwe, Alapin, Znosko-Borovsky 8; Bogoljubow, Evensohn, Smorodsky 7; von Freymann 6; Levitsky 5 1/2; Taubenhaus 5; Lebedev, Evtifeev, Eljaschoff 3 1/2; Gregory 1 1/2
The victory by Alekhine over Evensohn not having been included in today's dispatch, we begin with the encounter between Flamberg and Gregory, a somewhat unusual Sicilian Defense in which Black seemed to hold his own over the first 30 moves, only then to allow the winning advance of White's passed a-pawn.
Salwe and Niemzowitsch contested a carefully-played Queen's Pawn Game in which neither party ever seemed likely to win. In the final position Black may choose either to give or to permit perpetual check, but that is all.
Lowtzky at last overcame Bogoljubov, breaking through on the King-side after a difficult struggle. We must advise the reader that the game score as transmitted from St. Petersburg was unfortunately somewhat garbled; we have endeavored to make sense of it as best we could. Bogoljubow, who after seven rounds found himself among the leaders, has added only two points to his total since that time and now stands in the middle of the pack with an even score.
Eljaschoff scored his second victory of the tournament (the first having come at the expense of Gregory in the previous round) when Lebedev went astray in a complicated middlegame. 34...d3 would seem to lead to a draw. The finish is attractive.
No comments:
Post a Comment