Kobalia and Volkov lead in Russian Championship

58th Russian Individual Championship (Semi-Final)

The Russian Championship Qualifier is being held in Kazan from September 2nd – 12th, 2005. The event is a nine-round Swiss tournament, with the games starting at 15:00h Moscow time (13:00h CEST, 7:00 a.m. NY). Time controls are 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and 10 minutes for the rest of the game. There is a 30 seconds increment after each move, from the first move on. The prize fund is US $100,000.

After five rounds GMs Mihail Kobalia and Sergey Volkov are in the lead with four points each. Both won two black games and one white, with two games ending in a draw. Kobalia defeated Bareev with black.

The drawing average of all 165 games was 52%, with 33% white and 15% black wins. The shortest draw given was in the official bulletin was Shaposhnikov-Popov(3), which went 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.e3 Bb4 ½-½. But there are 15 games given with no moves, only results, so it is possible that the organisers are having dificulty getting complete gamescores.

Standings after five rounds

• Click here to download all the games so far in zipped PGN
• Official Web Site. There is live coverage, games and results. A selection of games is also being broadcast on Playchess.com.

Picture gallery

By Pufichek

Statues of Lenin can still be found in Kazan in 2005, 14 years after the fall of communism

The main street of the city, with lovely fountains, is lively and restricted to pedestrians

Some streets are being redone entirely – here the continuation of Bauman street

Russian women's champion Alexandra Kosteniuk in Kazan. Alexandra is playing in this "men's" event and fighting out each game against strong male GMs. She has taken time off to give us these pictures.

The city is full of churches and coupolas

The Soviet-style Hotel Tatarstan, where the participants are logded

All pictures were provided by Pufichek.
You can see many more on the Alexandra Kosteniuk web site.