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The leaders are beaten by the youth

A round full of surprises! It is a proof that everything is possible to happen on the chess board.

On table 1 witnessed the encounter between 2 x-champions, the young Amr ElJawish (White) and Antoine Kassis. After Amr’s 11^th move, Antoine pondered for 1 hour and 5 minutes on his next move (possibly a national record), a sign that he didn’t like his position or trying to refute a certain variation. This lap of time affected his final moves, especially as Amr was avoiding exchanging the queens, keeping the tension on the position and achieving an advantageous position. An adventurous sacrifice from Amr aggrieved the situation over Antoine’s decision making, forcing the later to blunder and to resign.

With a tolerance of 30 minutes to be present at the board, Faisal Khairallah arrived at his board on table 2 with 20 minutes late. This must affected his play, as his opponent, the young Ibrahim Chahrour, playing with the Black pieces, adopted his favorite opening against the 1-d4 of Faisal, the King’s Indian Defense. Ibrahim succeeded in snatching a pawn, but Faisal got compensation with active piece play. He succeeded in winning back his materials, at the cost of losing coordination of his remaining heavy pieces, from which Ibrahim profited to put Faisal’s king in a mating net, forcing the later to resign.

Mohammad Mikati, playing White on table 3 against Tarek Moudallal, was still searching for his first point score. He played his opening well; reaching the middle game phase with enough time on his clock to make a play; then suddenly he blundered a piece, and after few moves played by inertia, he gave up.

An interesting battle occurred on table 4 between Ahmad Najjar (White) and Mahdi Kaouri, who spent 23 minutes on his first 2 moves. Both gladiators fought well in the opening and middle game phases, reaching an old Benoni/king’s Indian setup. A queen is a queen, which is a proof of the draw resulted by 3-repetition check rules that Mahdi’s queen did to Najjar ‘s king, while the later’ s rooks were idle.

The first game to finish after just 65 minutes (what a coincidence: same period of time used by Antoine on his 11^th move) was the one on table 5 between Jammal Shamiyeh (White) and Amir Abou ElHusn. Amir underestimated Jammal ‘s active pieces, with which the later constructed a typical attacking form against Amir’s king. Some nice tactical sacrifices were used by Jammal to collect materials, and the game point.

Table 6 was the witness of the forced peace signature between Dr Mahmoud Maasarani (White) and Bassel Sharaf, after a solid game played by the two gladiators.

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Standing after round 6:

Elo rating statistics after round 6: