Jobava wins Georgian Championship with 2½ point lead

Georgian Championship 2012

Report from Tbilisi by WIM Sopho Nikoladze

The Georgian Men's Championship was held in the Chess Palace in the capital city of Tbilisi. Time limit: 40 moves in 90 min., then all moves in 30 min., with an increment of 30 sec after each move. Chief Arbiter was Evgeni (Tuga) Melikset-Begi. The prize fund of the twelve player round robin was 14,500 Georgian Lari, which translates to €7100 or US $9000.

In the final round Baadur Jobavabeat David Arutinian, Konstantine Shanava lost to Luka Paichadze, and Davit Zarkua drew Merab Gagunashvili. In the final standing it was Baadur Jobava who became the champion of Georgia, for the third time, after victories in 2003 and 2007.

Merab Gagunashvili and Davit Zarkua had equal scores and had to play tie-breaks. The first rapid match ended 1:1, and in the following blitz games Gagunashvili defeated Zarkua 1.5:0.5, gaining a ticket to the European Championship 2013. It is remarkable that five participants fulfilled norms: Davit Zarkua and Luka Paichadze made GM norms, while Irakli Beradze, Davit Lomsadze and Zurab Javakhadze chalked up International Master norms. Here the final rankings after eleven rounds:

The event took place in Chess Palace (above), which was built in 1973 in honour of the first world champion, Nona Gaprindashvili. In the same location where the men are competing tow women's world championship matches (second half of the closing) were held:

• In 1975, between Nana Aleksandria and Nona Gaprindashvili
• In 1981 between Maya Chiburdanidze and Nana Alexandria

The plaque at the entrance to the Chess Palace

The gardens of the Chess Palace, where players ...

... above Konstantine Shanava, Irakli Beradze, Zurab Javakhadze, Davit Lomsadze
can relax or infuse a popular alkaloid into their blood streams

Inside the Chess Palace, with a round of the Georgian Championship under way

We asked our report Sopho Nikoladze to send us some information on the players, as she had done in her exemplary reports (here and here) from the Women's Championship a few weeks ago. Initially she found this quite frustrating, replying "Regarding their occupation they are all basically either professional players, or trainers, and all give football as their main hobby." But a little digging did produce heroic results (and other notable hobbies), which we now share with you.

The winner: GM Baadur Jobava, rated 2721, 28 years old. He likes gambling and and extreme ice
hockey. Baadur is very popular with women, but is now married and has a little daughter named Izabela.

Second: GM Merab G. Gagunashvili G, 2570, 27 years old, is fond of Eastern
cultures and likes traveling in exotic countries seeking adventure

IM Davit Zarkua, 2446, 25 years old, is a telecommunication engineer. His hobbies
are football – he says he is a ardent fan of the England team – and swimming.


IM Luka Paichadze, 2480, 21 years old, is a professional chess trainer. He says
his hobby is football and the team that receives his full support is Real Madrid.

GM Konstantine G. Shanava, 2589, 27 years old, an economist who likes billiards.
He very frankly says he has four hobbies: drinking, women, women and women!

Part two with portraits of the remaining players and
a report on Garry Kasparov's visit in Tbilisi will follow soon.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.

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