Ehlvest keeps on winning

Grandmaster Jaan Ehlvest continues to cut a wide swath through the local chess scene, easily winning the 47th annual Baltimore Open earlier this month at Goucher College with an undefeated 4-1/2-1/2 score. The Estonian-born GM’s win comes just two weeks after his tie for first in the 33rd annual Eastern Open in the District.

IM Oladapo Adu, who managed a last-round draw against Ehlvest, finished in a tie for second at 4-1 with FM Boris Zisman, NM Troy Roberts and Ehlvest’s compatriot, Kaupo Kruusiauk. Tournament director Mike Atkins reports that Ehlvest faced his toughest test in his Round 3 game against Maryland master Denis Strenzwilk, but grandmasterly technique won out in a major-piece ending that was one of the last games of the round to finish.

Doug Stanley took the Class A prize, with Luis Gonzalez-Silen and Michael Stepp sharing Class B honors. The Class C prize went to Joseph Coppola, and Alvin Jones turned in a fine 3-2 result to take the Class D prize and a boatload of rating points. In an unusual pairing, Dr. Steven Hudson took the Baltimore Open Class E honors while his wife, Lori, snared the Under-1000 prize.

Congratulations to all.

The annual Corus Tournament, the first superelite event of the year, has kicked off in the chess-mad Dutch city of Wijk aan Zee. World champ GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and a flock of his top rivals — including Viswanathan Anand of India, Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov, Peter Svidler of Russia and Armenian Levon Aronian — are competing in the A Group tournament.

Giving the tournament extra spice is the presence of a trio of young guns — Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine and rising Norwegian star Magnus Carlsen — in the field this year. The Dutch event should provide an early glimpse of which players are hot as the FIDE world championship candidates’ matches get started in the spring.

We’ll have games and a wrap-up of the action from Wijk aan Zee in next week’s column.

GM Peter Leko of Hungary, the one top contender absent from Corus, has a good excuse: He’s still resting up from his tough win in the first Association of Chess Professionals World Rapid Cup in Odessa, which ended Jan. 8. The 16-grandmaster knockout event is a welcome attempt to revive the great rapid tournaments once run by the defunct Professional Chess Association.

Leko defeated veteran Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk in the finals, winning the second blitz playoff game. Young American GM Hikaru Nakamura put up a tough fight but was bounced by Israeli GM Boris Gelfand in the first round.

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It was perhaps just too good to last.

The U.S. Chess Federation is seeking a new sponsor for the 2007 national championship tournament and the U.S. women’s championship after failing to strike a deal with the San Diego-based America’s Foundation for Chess.

The ACF brought a rare period of order and stability to the national title event, which had gone through a long period of sponsor and format changes before the San Diego group stepped in in 2000. It’s a shame that what should be the country’s premier event is once again an organizational orphan.

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