Dortmund 2010 in Germany is a six-player double round robin, generally regarded as one of the significant chess tourneys in the world. This year its representatives came from six countries: Azerbaijan, Germany, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, and Vietnam. Ruslan Ponomariov, world champion in 2002, won it with 6.5/10 pts.
Vladimir Kramnik, rated fourth in the world, had, for him, a bad tournament. He had a very slow start, with three draws in the first four rounds and a loss to Ponomariov. He made a comeback in the last half of the tourney, but he could only score 5 points in total. Ponomariov started off fast with two victories, but fell to Le Quang Liem of Vietnam in the fourth round.
The most interesting news of the tournament was probably the performance of Le Quang Liem. He was the lowest-rated player among the competitors, rated No. 1 player of Vietnam but not well known in the West until this year, at which time he tied for first, but placed third on tie break, at the Moscow Open and won the Aeroflot tourney in Russia. At Dortmund, he placed second behind Ponomariov, having defeated Ponomariov’s Gruenfeld Defense in round 4.
The appearance of dark horses from the East is no longer a phenomenon, as chess has become immensely popular in India and China.
The triumph of Le Quang reminds us of Sultan Khan, not an aristocrat but a humble, illiterate serf from India in the 20th century. He had excelled at Indian chess and was taken into the home of his master in India to study European chess. Later he was brought to London to play. Since, he could not read chess books, he never knew openings. He suffered severely from the London climate, and placed last in his first training tourney in England. He was given some coaching, entered the British championship, and won it. He later won two more British championships. He became one of the 10 strongest players in the world and represented Great Britain three times in the Olympiad on first board.
At the 1930-31 Hastings Championships, he won a celebrated game against the mighty José Raúl Capablanca in 65 moves. He returned to India as a humble manservant, and on the death of his master, was given a tiny farm and was never heard from again. Such is the mystery of chess talent.
Brevity: J. Speelman v. A. Miles (c.1971) 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 c6 4.Nf3 e4 5.Nd4 d5 6.cxd5 Qb6 7.Nb3 cxd5 8.Bg2 Bf5 9.d3 exd3 10.0–0 Nc6 11.exd3 d4 12.Re1+ Be7 13.Nd5 Nxd5 14.Bxd5 Nb4 15.Qf3 Bg6 16.Bg5 f6 17.Re6 Qd8 18.Bxb7 0–0 19.Bf4 Qd7 20.RxB; 1-0 (If 20 . . . QxR then 21.BxR leaves White up a piece.)
Winners: MetroWest Independence Day Open, 1st, Igor Foygel 3.5-4; U2200, Neil Cousin and Robert Holmgren 3.5-.5; Boylston Summer Open, 1st, Chris Chase 4.0, 2d-3d Zongyuan Yuan and Mika Brattain 3.0.
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