Game Of the Week: GM Sergei Tiviakov vs. GM Evgeny Romanov

GM Sergei Tiviakov vs. GM Evgeny Romanov

Opening: C07: French, Tarrasch, Open Variation

Player(s): Tiviakov, Romanov

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We already have team championships for countries and for clubs. So I'm not sure why the world needs the World Cities Championships. The U.S. team represented the city of Chicago, even though the players involved don?t seem to have any connection to the Windy City.

I can't evaluate if this was true for other squads. The winning team, Hoogeveens from the Netherlands, looked a lot like the Olympic team, with Giri, Sokolov, Tiviakov, and Smeets. Victory was achieved at least in some measure due to the technical efficiency of Sergei Tiviakov. You might remember Tiviakov inflicting an embarrassing defeat on Vishy Anand shortly before Anand's world championship title defense against Gelfand. In this week's feature game, Tiviakov again masters the art of 'nothing.' The heavy trading looked rather humdrum until a decisive advantage emerged, leaving Evgeny Romanov of Saratov wondering what went wrong.