Tag: Tournament

The Baku Chess Olympiad Operating Committee held a meeting on preparation for the upcoming World Chess Olympiad on September 1-14.

Mahir Mammadov, the director of the operations committee for the World Cup and the Chess Olympiad said that Azerbaijani chess players will defend sporting honor of Azerbaijan with dignity, Trend reported.

The meeting focused on training of the first national team in Gabala, the second team in Baku, including the first training camp players. Favorable conditions will be created for all teams, participating in the competition.

“The 42nd World Chess Olympiad is very important for our chess players. A prestigious event will be held in the capital of Azerbaijan – Baku, for the first time. The Ministry of Youth and Sport and Azerbaijan Chess Federation (ACF) have created the necessary conditions for all teams, participating in the Olympics. “Both men’s and women’s teams will continue training.” said Mammadov.

Vice President of ACF Faik Hasanov, as well as the coaches of national teams attended the meeting.

The chess tournament will host about 2,000 chess masters almost from 180 countries. The number of guests is expected to reach up to 3,000.

The budget for the Olympiad is 13.3 million euros. Some 6.8 million euros are set aside for first-class accommodation for the players and delegates. Another 1 will go to the FIDE Commission for World Championships & Olympiads and intellectual rights.

The tournament will take place at the unusual shape building Baku Crystal Hall once hosting Eurovision Song Contest in 2012.

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Magnus Carlsen leads the Grand Chess Tour after the speed events in Paris and the Belgian town of Leuven. But the world chess champion will not be around for the next two established classical events in Saint Louis and London. He is leaving the competition, mainly to prepare for the world championship match against Sergey Karjakin, scheduled for November in New York City. Carlsen’s exit gives other players a chance to win it all.

The Grand Chess Tour is a brainchild of Garry Kasparov and the former world champion borrowed some ideas from the 1988-89 World Cup, a series of six Grand Prix classical tournaments I organized for the Grandmasters Association as its Executive director. For example, every player participates in four tournaments and can discard the worst result. The wild card, now used by GCT and FIDE, was an accident. It appeared that instead of the planned 24 players, one more qualified. The English grandmaster John Nunn created a new playing format. It gave us four extra spots to invite local players – the four wild cards.

Last year, Kasparov intended to have four GCT tournaments, but one event in Asia did not materialize. Carlsen won the three-event competition. This year, the Norwegian organizers, having a different view of chess sponsorship, left the GCT. But Kasparov was able to find two new spots in Paris and Leuven to stage speed tournaments, combining nine rapid and 18 blitz games in each event.

Hikaru Nakamura and Carlsen are considered the world’s top two speed chess players. When they were younger, they played an all-night friendly blitz marathon in Moscow. They compete for good money now. In the first GCT event in Paris, Nakamura edged Carlsen for first place, despite losing their rapid encounter.

Carlsen,Magnus – Nakamura,Hikaru GCT Blitz Paris 2016

32…Ne4?
The knight leaves an important defensive post. After 32…Rd7 33.c3 Re4 Black is still in the game.
33.Nh4!
Transferring the knight to g6 will create a mating threat Rh8 mate.
33…Nd6 34.Rd8 Rc7
Otherwise 35.Ng6 wins.
35.Rxd6 Black resigned.

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Each team in the league is allowed to register seven Chinese players and an unlimited number of foreign players. However, compared to European Leagues there are only a few foreign players who start for Chinese teams.

At the end of last week rounds five to seven of the current season were played and after seven round the team of Shanghai, which plays with Ni Hua and Ju Wenjun, leads the table.

The rating differences between the various teams are sometimes huge though this does not necessarily reflect the real strength of the players, but is partly due to the fact that a lot of Chinese players are underrated because they do not have a lot of opportunities to play in international tournaments against non-Chinese players.

The following game between the unknown 18-year old Liu Manli (Elo 2007) and WGM Tan Zhongyi (2509), who has lots of international tournament experience, was played in the match between Chongqing against Guangdong. It shows how important it is to know your openings well. In this game one player was well prepared while the other did not really seem to know the theory of the line she was playing. This might have tempted her to try a combination that thoroughly backfired. However, in this case, the nominally weaker player was the dominant one.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Qb6 5.Nb3 Nf6 6.Nc3 e6 7.Qe2 7.Be3 Qc7 8.a3 7…Bb4 7…Qc7 8.f4 Bb4 9.Bd2 Bxc3 10.bxc3 d6 11.g4 b6 12.Bg2 Bb7 13.g5 Nd7 14.h4 Na5 15.Nxa5 bxa5 16.Rb1 Nc5 17.h5 0-0 18.g6 h6 19.gxf7+ Qxf7 20.0-0 Rae8 21.c4 Ba6 22.Bxa5 Rc8 23.Bb4 Rfd8 24.Rf2 Nd7 25.Bxd6 Bxc4 26.Qf3 Nf6 27.Be5 Bxa2 28.Ra1 Bc4 29.f5 Qxh5 30.Qxh5 Nxh5 31.Rxa7 Rf8 32.Bh3 Rce8 33.Rc7 Rc8 34.Rxc8 Rxc8 35.fxe6 Re8 36.Bg4 g6 37.Bxh5 gxh5 38.Rg2+ 8.Bd2 0-0 9.a3 Bxc3 9…Be7 10.0-0-0 d5 10.Bxc3 e5 11.0-0-0 Rd8 12.Rd6 Nd4? 12…Qc7 13.Rxf6 gxf6 14.Qg4+ Kf8 15.Qh4 d6 16.Qxf6 Be6 17.f4 12…Ne8? 13.Ba5 Nxd6 14.Bxb6 axb6 15.Qd3 Ne8 16.Qe3 Nf6 17.Qxb6 Nxe4 18.Bb5 Re8 19.Rd1 Nf6 13.Rxd4 13.Rxb6? Nxe2+ 14.Bxe2 axb6 15.Bxe5 Nxe4 13…exd4 14.Ba5 d3 15.Qxd3 Qe6 15…Qxf2 16.Bxd8 Qe1+ 17.Qd1 Qxd1+ 18.Kxd1 Nxe4-+ 16.Bxd8 Ng4 17.Qd2 d5 18.exd5 Qe8 19.Bh4 Bf5 20.Bd3 1–0

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6/20/2016 – Leuven Day 4: After winning the Rapid leg and remaining competitive in the Blitz, Magnus Carlsen leads Leuven with 17 points. He is followed by Wesley So in second with 16 points, and Levon Aronian with 15.5. With nine rounds to go, it is still wide open.

 

The greatest chess tournament ever staged in Belgium, Your Next Move Grand Chess Tour, is taking place in the historic Town Hall of Leuven from Friday 17 June to Monday 20 June. The best chess players in the world at the moment will take part in the tournament: World Champion Magnus Carlsen, former World Champions Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik, as well as Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, Aronian Levon, Wesley So and Veselin Topalov.

The players will compete in a Rapid Chess and Blitz Chess tournament during the four days. The prize money for the tournament is $150.000 (€134.100). Chess fans will be able to enjoy the experience of seeing the greatest players compete live in Leuven or watch the streaming broadcast, complete with grandmaster commentary.

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The friendly character of the match between the two national teams was reflected in a high number of draws. The men had a drawing rate of 76% (19 games ended peacefully, six had a winner) while the women had a drawing rate of 64% – 16 of the 25 games ended in a draw, an unusually high drawing percentage for a women’s event. However, it has to be noted that most of the games were hard-fought and everything but peaceful draws.

While the match between the Russian and the Chinese men had been always balanced, the Russian women had been dominating the Chinese from the very start. However, in the fifth round the Chinese managed to score two wins: Tan Zhongyi won against Anastasia Bodnaruk and Shen Yang won against Valentina Gunina – however, only with a lot of luck and a lot of help by her opponent.

The Chinese team: Coach Yu Shaoteng, Ding Yixin, Gou Qi, Tan Zhongyi,
Lei Tingjie (number one on the girls’ world ranking list) and Shen Yang

The Russian team: Mark Glukhovsky, Katerina Lagno, Anastasia Bodnaruk,
Aleksandra Goryachkina, Valentina Gunina, Natalia Pogonina and coach Sergey Rublevsky
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The traditional match between the national chess teams of Russia and China starts in Moscow. The opening ceremony of the friendship tournament, which was established in 2001, will be held on 10 June 2016 at the Botvinnik Central House of Chess (14/1 Gogolevski Boulevard).

Game dates: June 11-15. Games will begin at 3pm Moscow time. The match will be held on 10 boards (5 men and 5 women), according to the Scheveningen system. The team with the most points will be declared the winner.

The match is organized by the Russian Chess Federation with the support of the Volga Group, the official partner of the men’s national chess team of Russia, and UES Federal Grid Company, the general sponsor of Russia’s national chess teams.

Live games will be daily on Chessdom.com starting at 15:00 CET

Russian National Teams

Men: Ian Nepomnyashchiy, Dmitry Yakovenko, Daniil Dubov, Dmitry Andreykin and Maxim Matlakov. Coaches: Alexander Motylev and Vladimir Potkin.
Women: Valentina Gunina, Natalia Pogonina, Anastasia Bodnaruk, Alexandra Goryachkina, and Ekaterina Lagno. Coaches: Sergey Rublevsky and Alexander Ryazantsev.

Chinese National Teams

Men: Wang Yue, Yu Yangyi, Lu Shanglei, Wen Yang and Zhou Jianchao. Coach: Yu Shaoten
Women: Tan Zhongyi, Shen Yang, Guo Qi, Ding Yixin, and Lei Tintsze. Coach: Yu Shaoten.

The first friendship match between Russia and China was held in 2001 in Shanghai with the participation of six of the strongest teams of Russia and China (2 men’s, 2 women’s and 2 junior teams). A total of nine tournaments were held between 2001 and 2015, with matches in Shanghai, Moscow, Beijing, Ningbo, Sochi, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod. While the tournaments were held in accordance with different systems and with different line-ups, at least 50% of all team line-ups were members of the Olympic teams.

In 2015, according to the results of traditional tournaments, the total score was 4:5 in favor of the Chinese team. However, at the suggestion of China, an additional knockout match among men’s teams was held in 2015. Russia’s Sergey Karyakin who played the first board during the match, beat the entire Chinese Olympic team.

«Russia and China attach great importance to the development of chess at the state level and are the countries that set the world chess calendar», said the President of the Russian Chess Federation Andrey Filatov. «We are glad that the Russian-Chinese relations in the field of chess have been strengthening year after year. White Castle, a chess tournament for school teams, has just finished in Sochi. This year, young Chinese players took part in this renowned competition for the first time and showed a brilliant winner result. The friendship match between the national teams of Russia and China, which starts today, will be another step towards developing our cooperation, and we are very pleased to host the match in Moscow, in the historic walls of the Botvinnik Central House of Chess.»

For additional information: Kirill Zangalis. Tel: (968) 732 0080; e-mail: zangalis@mail.ru.

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Women’s World Chess Championship Match 2016 between the current World Champion Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine and her challenger Hou Yifan of China (former World Champion 2010-2012, 2013-2015) is taking place in Lviv, Ukraine, on March 1-18, 2016.

The prize fund for this match is 200,000 Euros and will be split between the players as follows: 60% for the winner and 40% to the loser if the match ends within the 10 regular games. In case the winner is decided by tie-break games, she will receive 55% and loser 45%. Mariya Muzychuk is holding the title after 2015 Women World Championship in Sochi while Hou Yifan had a right to challenge her after she became first in the Grand Prix Series 2013-2014.

Mariya Muzychuk and Hou Yifan played two times against each other in the past. They met first time during Gibraltar tournament in 2012 and the second game has been played during FIDE Women Grand Prix in Monaco 2015. The games between them have been hard-fought but in both of them Hou Yifan defeated her opponent. According to FIDE rating on 1st of February 2016 Hou Yifan (2673) holds the first position among women, while Mariya Muzychuk (2554) shares the fourth place with Alexandra Kosteniuk.

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