"Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you." - Arnold Palmer

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Brighton's Echoes: When Even A Grandmaster Struggles....

Igor Rausis
Igor Rausis (born April 7, 1961, in Komunarsk, Ukrainian SSR) is a Latvian chess grandmaster who originates from Ukraine. He was Latvian champion in 1995. From 2003 to 2007 he represented Bangladesh but from 2007 he has played for Czech Republic.
Rausis played for Latvia in Chess Olympiads:
Rausis played for Latvia in World Team Chess Championship:
  • In 1993, at first reserve board in Lucerne (+0, =2, -2).
In the 2008 Chess Olympiad, Rausis was Bangladesh chess team coach but in 2010 he became Algeria chess team coach.
This information I have borrowed from Wikipedia.

Last week Igor Rausis took part in the Brighton International chess tournament. 
He "suffered" two loses at the very beginning of the tournament in the rounds 1 and 2, which were followed by two draws, so before the round 5 he had 1 point out of 4! You can imagine what such a result can do with the psyche and ego of any player not only GM! But I was watching him closely, hoping that I can learn something, and I really could. It was amazing how much energy he had spent to focus himself on every single game from round 5 on, how stubbornly he sat at the table, he remained focused, focused, focused, ..., and kept analysing, analysing and analysing. Having seen that I realized that there are certain qualities which separates "us", the ordinary mortals, from "them" who are more successful in the game of chess!
Alex Longson
His first "victim" on his path back into the business became Alex Longson. A nice British guy who is rated 2281 at the moment, but Igor says he is much stronger than that. He also praised his knowledge of opening theory...
The game itself was rather messy! Igor started with 1.Nf3 but the game quickly went on into the Semi-Slav and Alex lured Igor into Moscow variation. Igor was not interested and he retreated his Bishop on h4 first and then on g3. Finally he pushed h-pawn forward which is sort of modern treatment of openings. And what happened later was an awful mess on the chess board and you can see it.



GM Rausis finally finished on the 5th place making 5 points out of 9. After such a terrible beginning not bad result whatsoever.

Rnd Table Pno Name Flags Fed. Rating Score
opponent
Score
player
BH SB TPR W-We
total
W-We
per game
Colour Float Result
1 4 5 FM Bigg, Andrew J
ENG 2304 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 +0.00 -0.75 b 0
2 2 1 IM Rudd, Jack
ENG 2300 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1569 -0.75 -0.26 w ½
3 5 7 Willmoth, Robert F
ENG 2154 0.0 0.5 3.0 0.75 2109 -1.01 -0.38 b ½
4 1 10 FM White, Michael J R
ENG 2229 2.0 1.0 4.5 1.25 2128 -1.39 -0.83 b 0
5 5 2 Longson, Alexander
ENG 2281 1.5 1.0 10.0 2.0 2054 -2.22 +0.22 w 1
6 2 3 FM Sowray, Peter J
ENG 2367 3.0 2.0 14.0 4.0 2182 -2.00 -0.18 b ½
7 4 9 IM Vuilleumier, Alexandre
SUI 2359 3.0 2.5 19.5 6.25 2216 -2.18 +0.31 w 1
8 3 8 Ueti, Silvio Shigueo
BRA 2150 1.0 3.5 25.0 10.25 2285 -1.87 -0.39 b ½
9 3 4 FM Croad, Nicolas
NZL 2307 6.5 4.0 29.5 13.0 2268 -2.26 +0.25 w 1
Total 5.0 40.0 21.5 2315 -2.01



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