Chess Celebrations in Odessa, Ukraine
By GM Mikhail Golubev, photos by Lena Ivanova
Chess Championship of Soborka
‘Soborka’, or, officially, the Sobornaya Square, is the place in
historical centre of the town where for many years chess lovers are meeting
each other to play their favourite game. In honour of chess fans, the 2nd Championship
of Soborka was held on 1st September. This blitz tournament was organised not
in park itself (as it was in the last year), but in the Passage trading center,
which is located in few dozen meters near Soborka.
Anyone could participate, including the titled players. Three first prizes
from the sponsor UkrFerry were tickets to ship cruise. There were more than
150 players. After preliminaries, 16 players qualified into the KO finals. As
one could have expected, the favourites dominated. The only participating grandmaster,
Andrey Sumets, defeated the national master Denis Kovalev in the final.
Mikhail Freidlin, the head of Agency for Odessa Development Programmes was
the Producer of chess events devoted to the birthday of Odessa. Chess is one
of many his interests. Thus, every year Freidlin organises the international
jazz carnival in our town.
The last year’s winner Stanislav Bogdanovich did not manage to repeat
his success
Armageddon! The match for the third place finished last in the tournament.
International master Roman Kozel won the match versus the 15 years old Alexey
Volosheniuk.
Another key person in organisation was the Director, grandmaster Vladimir Tukmakov
who is also the coach of Ukrainian national team.
Freidlin, Volosheniuk and Tukmakov
Mega-Simul on 213 boards
Two other events took place near the Vorontsov’s Palace on the main day
of celebrations, 2nd September. On the 213th birthday of Odessa, a simul on
213 boards was organised. Luckily as it seems, our town is young.
Chess and music, why not?
More precisely, 15 simuls were held simultaneously. Five grandmasters (Eingorn,
Tukmakov, Sumets, Legky and I) and ten International Masters scored 202 points
in 213 games, with seven losses and eight draws. Age of our opponents varied
from 5 to 92 years!
Below are some pictures from the simul, taken by our extraordinary photographer.
Living Chess
The simul ended, and the Living Chess programme was about to begin...
Mayor of Odessa (right) congratulates the winner of Soborka championship,
grandmaster Sumets.
The Alekhine brothers, Fischer, Topalov, Kasparov and Karpov – Odessite
namesakes of the world champions were invited to ceremony.
The Odessa dancing group Surprise. They also acted as chess pieces.
The white side of the royal game makes its moves
...and the black side responds
GM Vladimir Tukmakov (white), art director Fedor Tkach and GM Viacheslav
Eingorn (black) before the game
The "pieces" have been set up, the game can begin
Queen to h5, as in the game Halprin vs Pillsbury, Munich 1900
The white and black chess figures come into contact
Grandmaster Eingorn ponders, the spectators wait
A captured white pawn leaves chess board
A white rook has captured a piece and orders it off the board
After approximately one hour of play a draw was agreed
... which leads to jubilation and the final dance
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