Tactics Festival - Part III |
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Tuesday, 08 May 2012 | ||||
by Natalia Pogonina for her Chess.com Tuesday column In Part I and Part II we were discussing the first four rounds of the Russian Team Chess Championship 12. A few important clashes have happened already, but the most critical rounds are usually the final ones. The teams were competing not only for medals, but for qualification spots to the Eurocup. In Loo (ironically, the name of the place we were playing) rainy days were replaced by sunny weather, this drawing an invisible line between the first and the second parts of the tournament. In round 5 the following matches were played: St. Petersburg Economist; Navigator Chigorin Chess Club; SHSM-64 Universitet; Ugra Tomsk-400. Our team, Rakita, had to face Politechnik on board 5. The Saratov team Economist was leading with a perfect score (8/8) and had huge chances to win the title. The crazy top game between Svidler and Morozevich ended in a draw, but it will still probably made it to the all-April chess hit lists. Four more encounters ended in a draw. Movsesian scored for St. Petersburg against Eljanov, thus granting a match victory for his team. Movsesian started with 0.5/2, but then pulled himself together and won 4 games in a row, including beating Motylev and Leko, with a final performance of 2814. Photo by Mariya Fominykh, chesspro.ru On board 2 Navigator drew Chigorin Chess Club; SHSM-64 crushed Universitet 5-1. The confrontation between Ugra and Tomsk was a matter of life and death in the sense that the winner had a chance to push for the medals, while the loser was out of contention and struggling to qualify for the Eurocup. Tomsk won with a minimal advantage: Sergey Karjakin defeated the European Chess Champion Dmitry Jakovenko with Black. All the games in our match ended in a draw, except for my teammate Boris Savchenkos time trouble loss against Dmitry Bocharov. Try to find the best continuations in these positions without looking at the answers and then check your solutions: Closer to the finish the atmosphere was heating up. In round 6 Economist was challenged by Tomsk-400. Both teams needed a win pretty badly. The team from Saratov didnt manage to recover from the painful loss in round 5 and succumbed again. Nepomniatchi defeated Inarkiev, but Bologan vs Eljanov and Kournosov vs Andreikin ended in Tomsks favor (i.e., Bologan and Kournosov won). Alexei Vetrov (Economist) and Boris Shaidullin (Tomsk-400): the handshake of the captains Photo by Mariya Fominykh, chesspro.ru Two other potential contenders for gold, St. Petersburg Chess Federation and SHSM-64 defeated Navigator and Chigorin Chess Club correspondingly. The team from Moscow actually delivered a knock-out: 6-0! On the next few boards people were fighting for the qualification spots. Politechnik prevailed over EGU-Perspectiva 4.5-1.5; Ugra won against Nezhmetdinov Chess School 4-2; Universitet demolished Rakita 5-1. This was the harshest of our losses at this event. I drew GM Poluljhahov, IM Oparin drew GM Burmakin, and our other teammates lost. We were actually hoping to finish in the top-10, but after this round the chances had virtually evaporated. Two more brain-crackers for you to handle: Before the decisive 7th round the rankings table of the top-10 looked as follows: 1. St. Petersburg Chess Federation - 10/12 2-3. SHSM-64, Tomsk- 400 9/12 4-5. Economist-SGSU; Politechnik 8/12 6-9. Ugra, Navigator, Chigorin Chess Club, Universitet 7/12 10. EGU-Perspektiva 6/12
Photo by Eteri Kublashvili, russiachess.org
Photo by Mariya Fominykh, chesspro.ru
A few more brain-teasers: P.S. This is the final article about the Russian Team Chess Championship! Stay tuned for the Anand-Gelfand World Chess Championship match!
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