Fighting Chess in the First Round

First round of the Lake Sevan 2017 international chess tournament took place on the lakeshore of picturesque Sevan. Lake Sevan 2017 is the strongest tournament that is being held in Armenia this year. All the players were determined to win a full point during the first round. And all the games of the round were decisive. On July 14 the youngest participant of the tournament – Haik Martirosyan was celebrating his 17th birthday. Before the start of the round the organizers and all the participants of the tournament congratulated Haik on this occasion. The best present for Haik of course would be a victory, and he didn’t let himself down. In a tense game he managed to outplay Tigran Harutyunyan. The round was bot successful for the rest Armenian players: Samvel Ter-Sahakyan lost to Martyn Kravtsiv, Tamir Nabaty took victory over Manuel Petrosyan and Igor Kovalenko was stronger than Hovhannes Gabuzyan. All these four games were won by white.

In the longest game of the round, a newly crowned Champion of Africa, Bassem Amin defeated Dariusz Swiercz in style. The game lasted about 5 hours and Bassem, playing black, made his opponent to resign on move 69.