Cevdet KIZIL ranks 2nd in Hasbahce Chess Tournament '2003
(The article below originally belongs to Hasbahce Chess Club)
The date was December 2003. Hasbahce Chess Club had to determine its new champion, so invitations were sent to many players. However, the participation remained limited - because the top three rated players had phoned the club to say that they would join the tournament. This meant that many other players would avoid joining the tournament since they gave themselves little chance against these three top competitors. These top competitors were Cevdet KIZIL (the highest rated - rating = 2189 & HGM), Gurkan EKIN (the second highest rated - rating = 1957 & HGM) and Bora ALTINORDU (the third highest rated - rating = 1938 & HGM). In addition to these players, Ali KIZIL (the sixth highest rated - rating = 1710 & HM) and Mehmet SARITAS (the tenth highest rated player - rating = 1605 & HM) had also phoned to inform their participation for the tournament.
Evaluating these five players before the tournament, someone could say that even though Cevdet Kizil was the highest rated player of this tournament, he was lacking practice for the last months. Another high rated player, Gurkan Ekin was unable to prepare enough for the tournament since he was experiencing some busy days. Then, Ali Kizil and Mehmet Saritas could not have the opportunity to study hard for this tournament either. On the other hand, since three other players of the tournament (Cevdet Kizil, Bora Altinordu and Gurkan Ekin) were much higher rated compared to them, they didn't have a lot of things to lose - meaning that risk for them was low. Ali Kizil and Mehmet Saritas could even experience serious rating increment if they could win or draw against Cevdet Kizil, Bora Altinordu and Gurkan Ekin, and they had achieved these successes in the past tournaments. So, this was the main reason for these two players to join the tournament. Besides, before the tournament, these two players were always claiming that they were better than the other. Thus, although they could lose their games against the top three players, they were expecting to higher their ratings with the games played in between. To analyze another player of the tournament, Bora Altinordu, it could be said that although he was the third highest rated player of the competition, he was still shown as the favorite player of Hasbahce Chess Tournament '2003. The main reason for this was Bora Altinordu's performance in the last months. He was competing wonderfully in official Turkish tournaments with winning streaks, his UKD (official Turkish chess rating) was always increasing and he had promoted to final stage and had won the other tournaments he had joined in the previous months. Similar to the scenario described, Bora Altinordu had also said that he was going to visit Hasbahce Chess Club for winning the champion title and he would continue his first victory in '2002.
As a result, before the tournament, two categories of players were observed. The first one was the Bora Altinordu - Cevdet Kizil - Gurkan Ekin category who would try their best for the championship (1st place) and the second category was Ali Kizil - Mehmet Saritas who would run for a surprise by beating the top three. The tournament was going to start with such an interesting atmosphere...
In the tournament, these results were recorded:
Bora Altinordu 1-0 Mehmet Saritas Mehmet Saritas 0-1 Bora Altinordu
Gurkan Ekin 1-0 Cevdet Kizil Cevdet Kizil 1-0 Gurkan Ekin
Ali Kizil 0-1 Bora Altinordu Bora Altinordu 1-0 Ali Kizil
Mehmet Saritas 0-1 Cevdet Kizil Cevdet Kizil 1-0 Mehmet Saritas
Gurkan Ekin 1-0 Ali Kizil Ali Kizil 0-1 Gurkan Ekin
Bora Altinordu 1-0 Cevdet Kizil Cevdet Kizil 0-1 Bora Altinordu
Mehmet Saritas 0-1 Gurkan Ekin Gurkan Ekin 1-0 Mehmet Saritas
Ali Kizil 0-1 Cevdet Kizil Cevdet Kizil 1-0 Ali Kizil
Bora Altinordu 1-0 Gurkan Ekin Gurkan Ekin 0-1 Bora Altinordu
Ali Kizil 1-0 Mehmet Saritas Mehmet Saritas 0-1 Ali Kizil
The Final Standings were:
1. Bora Altinordu - 8 points
2-3. Gurkan Ekin & Cevdet Kizil - 5 points
4. Ali Kizil - 2 points
5. Mehmet Saritas - 0 points
As a result, Bora Altinordu had gained the champion title of Hasbahce Chess Tournament '2003 with 8/8 points. He was able to win the '2003 championship by the help of his good form and competition in a lot of tournaments. Ali Kizil and Mehmet Saritas could not make any surprise of stealing points from the top three, but Ali Kizil was still advantageous since he had beat Mehmet Saritas two times in their two games, so had the points in his pocket. This meant, the greatest damage and wound were experienced by Mehmet Saritas. However, the tournament was not completely over yet. Because Cevdet Kizil and Gurkan Ekin were sharing the second and third places with 5/8 points and both of them had no advantage against each other considering their games (Cevdet Kizil 1:1 Gurkan Ekin - games between each other). Thus, they had to go for play-off games...
The favorite player of the play-off games was Cevdet Kizil. There were two reasons. First of all, his rating was much higher compared to Gurkan Ekin's rating (2189 VS 1957). Secondly, he had even played well against the champion of tournament, Bora Altinordu. For instance, considering Cevdet Kizil's games against Bora Altinordu, their first match was pretty equal both in positional and material terms. However Cevdet Kizil had lost on time. To mention their second game, Cevdet Kizil had gained the material advantage at the beginning of the match, but had lost it at the remaining part of the game due to a lack of concentration - indeed the tension had increased seriously during this second match and Cevdet Kizil had complained that the tournament room was not quite enough to play chess. On the other hand, Gurkan Ekin was not able to put the champion in so much trouble considering their games. Additionally, Gurkan Ekin, while playing with the white pieces, had even lost (resign) one match against Cevdet Kizil in 19 moves through their two games. To make a long story short, players were going into the play-off games in this mood.
Play-Off Results:
Cevdet Kizil 1-0 Gurkan Ekin
Gurkan Ekin 0-1 Cevdet Kizil
So, Cevdet Kizil ranked 2nd and Gurkan Ekin ranked 3rd in Hasbahce Chess Tournament '2003. After such a great rivalry, the three players - Bora Altinordu, Cevdet Kizil and Gurkan Ekin celebrated their achievement in the Hasbahce Chess Club Ceremony.