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Twenty years after becoming independent, the Chess Federation of Ukraine has finally organized a national championship that has attracted probably the strongest field ever. Well, maybe with the exception of the 2004 event when 32 top players (excluding Ruslan Ponomariov and Vladimir Baklan) took part in a knock-out tournament. It is surprising that at that time the prize fund was just $10,000. This time 12 players were competig for about $75,000. The progress is evident, but everything is relative in our world. This amount will neither impress athletes involved in many other types of sports, nor will it surprise the Russians. Ok, we know what we should be aiming for...
This year's championship was the 20th for independent Ukraine and 80th overall. Let me share with you some interesting pictures:
Anand-Gelfand World Chess Championship Match in Moscow?
Written by Administrator
Monday, 27 June 2011
Breaking news: Ilya Levitov, FIDE Vice-President and Head of the Russian Chess Federation Board mentioned at ChessPro's message board that "a serious sponsor has expressed interest in hosting the Anand-Gelfand match in Moscow. The application has already been sent to FIDE".
Is the matter decided, or will there be competing applications - that is an open question.
Impressive comeback: Morozevich wins the Russian Top League
Written by Administrator
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Alexander Morozevich vs one of the Russian young chess hopes Sanan Sjugirov (18 y.o., FIDE 2629): 1-0
Photo by WGM Anna Burtasova, russiachess.org
While not being the top-rated player of the tournament, Morozevich, an ex-world #2 was considered to be a favorite by the audience of the Russian Chess Federation website. However, it wasn't clear if the comeback will take place as the Russian Top League (an event that serves as a qualifier for the Superfinal) is one of the strongest swiss tournaments in the world. Vitiugov (2732), Jakovenko (2732), Tomashevsky (2707), Morozevich (2694) and the reigning European Chess Champion Potkin (2682) were seeded 1-5th.
The women's section was less impressive, but also featured some strong players: Gunina (2487), Zaiatz (2430), Kovalevskaya (2427), Bodnaruk (2419), Ovod (2404), etc.
Unfortunately, this year the number of qualifying spots for the Superfinal has been reduced, and the competition became even fiercer. Only top-3 men and top-5 women were to get a chance to play at the most prestigeous Russian event. Here are the lucky winners:
The rules are simple - send us your questions and see them featured in Natalia's Q&As column!
Q1: Do you think any human will achieve a 3000+ rating?
A1: FIDE ratings of different times are relative. If we "freeze" the current ones as a certain standard, then the best players are rated about 2800. To be 3000, one has to score about 3/4 points. I don't think there will ever be a person who will be able to consistenly beat Anand, Carlsen or Aronian 3-1.
Q2: I often listen to Classical music while studying or analyzing chess positions and puzzles. Many of my friends who play chess, like classical music. Do you like classical music? Is there any kind of connection with chess? Who is your favorite musician?
A2: While studying, I usually don't listen to any music at all since it's distracting. I have a deep respect for classical music, but in daily life prefer something "lighter" like A-ha, Enigma, Mylene Farmer or Dido. Not to mention LOTs of rap since my husband is a hard-core admirer of the hip-hop culture.
Q3: What do you bring to a tournament? And, in the U.S. at least, it is common to bring your own tournament bag, board, pieces and clock: do you have a tournament set you travel with, and if so will you post a picture for us!
A3: In the chess sense, all I need is a laptop with my opening preparation. The boards and digital clocks are always provided by the organizers. However, my chess friends sometimes take lessons from me since I'm quite skillful at packing up suitcases. Choosing the outfits for an event and making sure the luggage doesn't disturb you along the way is half the overall tournament success.
Q4: Excellent articles, can you please tell me if anyone can play at the Tal Memorial or is it just for GM? Do you know the exact date for this coming one? Thanks a lot.
A4: Thanks. The Tal Memorial will probably have a record XXII category this year and will take place in Moscow in November. According to FIDE Vice-president Ilya Levitov, Anand, Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Karjakin, Nakamura, Gelfand, Wang Hao and Nepomniatchi have confirmed their participating, while Ivanchuk will also get an invitation. And now try to guess yourself if anyone can play them or not.
Q5: What do you consider the best chess game? I have asked this question to many great players and would love to hear your view.
A5: There are many absolutely incredible chess masterpieces that we see in chess books and different "best prize" contests. And I don't think that any single game stands out from all the others so far that we may call it "the best".
Q6: I've been following the open tournament for the past 5 years regularly. What
I see is that the competition has been getting stiffer and stiffer.
More number of strong players have joined in (mostly the youngsters, but
no-name adults too with their practice) thus increasing the player base.
This scenario is what they call in economics "perfectly competitive model"
What do you think is the future of chess competition? will the number of
players in the tournament in future generally remain the same due to people
quitting chess eventually? In which case only the stronger ones remain which
leads to even more tough competition over years.
Isn't it tough for the players above the age of 18 years as they will be
facing stronger opposition in every tournament they play and that they will
no longer play "age-category" tournaments anymore? So is chess only limited
to youngsters, and that if any one is over 18, they either have to move on
to other career/job, or put up with stronger opposition if they feel they do
have guts to defeat them and take part in Open tournaments?
A6: First of all, chess is indeed becoming more competitive as more people start competing in tournaments. Modern amateurs are often underrated and very solid players who study opening, practice a lot and are free of the professional burden of having to earn money by playing. Also, the FIDE rule that gives a player rated 400 points above just 0.08 points is called ridiculous by many GMs. For example, a 2500 has to get 92 points out of 100 against a 2100 in order to maintain one's rating. Or do you think a 2800 will score that well against a 2400-rated IM?
Secondly, the trend is that life is becoming faster and faster, and we will obviously see more rapid and blitz in the future. However, as a devoted chess fan, I wouldn't like to see kids trained to be skillful woodpushers instead of bright strategic thinkers. One can't ignore the benefits of playing standard time control chess and replace it with blitz/rapid. Nonetheless, it is understandable that most chess fans can't afford to spend as much time on chess as open events require (e.g. 9 days in a row), so there has to be an alternative that can be run over the weekend.
Thirdly, most junior players compete in tournaments on par with adults. Of course, there are special age group championships, but it's not like kids play only among themselves. And yes, depending on the situation, either after 17 or after graduating from the university, they have to make up their minds and evaluate their chances of becoming a chess pro. Chess is very competitive, and you have got to be one of the very best to make a living by playing only. Of course, there are other ways you can earn money doing something chess-related, but it's a different story.
Q7: How do I beat you at the upcoming Polugaevsky Memorial? I'm a weak candidate master.
A7: Attend a hypnotist and have him convince you you are Garry Kasparov.
Daniel opens with e4 and I respond with the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian defense. Naroditsky plays the Be2 line, quickly moving to Bf3 to establish firm control of d5. Karpov employed similar plans with Be2-Bf3, and g3 nearly 40 years ago - attempting to reduce black's dynamic tactical possibilities and allow white to attempt a positional grind based on his slight space advantage and better static pawn structure. I think I employed an inaccurate grouping of my pieces with 14. ...Rfd8?! - better was 14. ...Qc4 to put more pressure on white's e4 pawn and on the c-file as well. I wasn't terribly impressed by 17. g4, as it seemed to be more of a weakness than a strength for white. I think a better plan for white is to either trade off the rooks or play the immediate Nd5. Also possible for white is 17. f4!? I could have played an interesting exchange sac with 18. ...Rd4!?, taking firm control of the d-file or the dark squares. 22. ...Bxe3?! was unnecessary and inaccurate, with 22. ...Kg8 to be preferred. Also, 28. ...Nd4 could have been a mistake, maybe 28. ...Nf4+ 29. Kf1 Qc6 - to stop 30. Qxc3 with 30. ...b5. At this point, we entered a time scramble and I was unable to break through white's position. A solid game by Naroditsky.
P.S. My apologies for the framerate, I did this video on an old computer on the road and it didn't encode properly (being as it was a live blitz game I couldn't redo it).
As you can see from the table, the 1st place was determined by a 0.25 point difference of the SB tie-break score. Chess fans would have definitely preferred a tie-break between the two 20-year old chess stars, but alas. Nonetheless, congrats to Magnus for winning another super tournament and to Sergey for tying for first and becoming the highest-rated Russian player for the first time in his life.
One more pic about chess & love - Ivanchuk (White) had a rather bad tournament, but managed to grind out an important win vs Nakamura in the final round:
