Canadians attending Spice Cup

[Hans Jung]

Its that time of year again and the Spice Cup is happening. Canadians attending are Victor Plotkin and Shiyam Thavandiran. Nice win Shiyam https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2017...andiran_Shiyam

[Victor Plotkin]

Re: Canadians attending Spice Cup

We have a new IM!! Shiyam drew his 7th round game against a 2600+ GM and his life rating crossed 2400 (should be around 2405). Congratulations!!

[Eric Hansen]

Re: Canadians attending Spice Cup

We have a new IM!! Shiyam drew his 7th round game against a 2600+ GM and his life rating crossed 2400 (should be around 2405). Congratulations!!

I'm glad Shiyam has found time for some chess while juggling work life... I lost count of how many IM norms he had scored. Congrats!

[Mike Ivanov]

Re: Canadians attending Spice Cup

Congrats! Well deserved.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Canadians attending Spice Cup

Finally! That must have been a ten year journey (at least). I must say Shiyam started with a very low FIDE rating and therefore it took much longer than normal. Congratulations Shiyam!

[Joshua Guo]

Re: Canadians attending Spice Cup

Excellent!! Great job Shiyam.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Canadians attending Spice Cup

http://en.chessbase.com/post/yermo-s...2017-spice-cup The Yermolator weighs in.

[Victor Plotkin]

Re: Canadians attending Spice Cup

http://en.chessbase.com/post/yermo-s...2017-spice-cup The Yermolator weighs in.

I am happy that Alex did not mention in his article our game in 4th round, he crushed me very fast with white pieces.

It was an excellent tournament, not so big, but very well-organized event. I have played many tournaments in USA, this one was much better than any other in America. Highly recommended for norm-seeking Canadians. About 20 GMs out of 60 players, the average rating was about 2350.

The only minor problem I had in this tournament - the scoresheet was for 40 moves only. I play long games fairly often, but this tournament it was unusual even for my standard: I used 3 or 4 scoresheets many times.

In round 1 (white against 2614 Hungarian GM) my decisive mistake was on move 102. In ending R+B+1P each I did not want to sacrifice a bishop for his advanced pawn. I was sure that I wouldn't hold R against R+B against a 2600 player.

https://live.chessbase.com/replay/sp...7/1?anno=False

My next 2 games were 80 and 73 moves, around my average in this tournament. After a fast loss to GM Yermolinsky, I drew my next game (white against 2100 player). In Q+P against Q ending, I successfully advanced my pawn to a7, but couldn't avoid perpetual. I played a7 on move 80 and after that tried almost 50 moves to make some progress. Computer shows that I missed a win couple of times.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Canadians attending Spice Cup

If you continue to play in Spice Cups perhaps we will see an IM title for you too.