Rest Day in Chengdu

The city of Chengdu in China is hosting the Women's World Chess Team Championship from April 18th to 28. The organizers are Chinese Chess Association, FIDE World Chess Federation, with the support of Board and Card Administrative Center of General Administration of Sport of China and Chengdu Municipal Government.

The best teams of the world will participate in the coming championship, among which the previous event's Women’s World Team Champion, the three highest-placed teams in the FIDE Olympiad prior to the event, the four Continental Champions, a team from the organizing federation, a team to be nominated by FIDE President. The ten countries are: China, Russia, Ukraine, USA, India, Poland, Armenia, Georgia, Egypt and Kazakhstan. Every team consists of five players and the team-winner will be determined in a round-robin event after 9 rounds. Time control is 90 minutes per 40 moves and thirty minutes until the end of the game plus 30 seconds increment per move.

This year's participants are Kazakhstan, India, China, USA, Ukraine, Russia, Gerogia, Armenia, Poland and Egypt.

Rest Day

April 24 was a rest day in Chengdu. The players had the option of sleeping the day away, going to Chengdu City to explore the wonders of Jinli Street and the Wuzhou Temple, or taking the guided tour to see the pandas. Most participants chose the the pandas, and several buses full of people were transported from the playing site to the Giant Panda Conservation Center of Chengdu.

A flag to try to keep the chess players together. Herding kittens is easier.

The lazy stars: Giant Pandas

Yuri Shulman with his wife Viktorija Ni (USA) trekking alongside Evgeny Najer (Russia)

Klaudia Kulon making her best panda paw impression

Alisa Melekhina will always find time to pose

There are so few pandas around that every one has its own name!

Team Poland

Team Egypt also made it out to the panda conservatory

Padmini Rout, from India

Team Kazakhstan trying to immortalize the moment

Bragging on social media as soon as the picture was taken...

Everyone is a photographer!

Team Egypt doesn't lag behind...

Alexandra Kosteniuk doesn't either...

Nastja Karlovich (left), who is actually the press officer. Marta Bartel isn't, but she tries.

The players left pretty early in the morning. After their breakfast buffet they were on their way by 8:30 am. The pandas are not the most active creatures on Earth, but there is a higher chance to see them moving around and playing with other pandas in the morning hours. When it gets hot they prefer to find a shadow and sleep.

They aren't known to be the most graceful of animals

It doesn't hurt to bring back a couple of souvenirs

Bela Khotenashvili, board one of the leading team

You can't feed the pandas, but you can feed the koi fish

Some preferred the cute red pandas (which aren't bears, or related to pandas)

Xu Yuhua giving a lecture

Meanwhile, Xu Yuhua was a guest lecturer at the Chengdu Normal College Primary School. She gave a lecture about the origin of chess, shared her experiences of learning chess and happily interacted with students. Chess started to be a course in this school startin from 2001.

Every student in the school knows how to play chess. Many chess talents are emerging in such an evironment, such as Wang Ruichen, a master of Chinese Chess Association and Jiang Tianci, silver medal winner of Li Chengzhi Chess Cup. However they do have their crown jewel: Her name is Lei Tingjie who spent two years studying in this primary school and is playing in the 2015 Women's World Team Chess Championship for the Chinese National Team. Students in this school, which has a very deep atmosphere of chess, were excited and eager to meet Xu Yuhua. Over 150 students attended the lecture.

Xu Yuhua, 39 years old now, achieved 3 gold medals successively in World Olympiads in 2000, 2002 and 2004. She was pregnant when she became the 11th World Champion, at the age of 30 in 2006. Today, Yu Yuhua, a petite lady, came to the school in a white coat and talked to the kids in a soft voice. She shared many stories with them and demonstrated one of her own lost chess games in a vivid way. Some students were encouraged to get on the stage to show some of their errors, which was very helpful for improving their understanding of the game. The following program was Q&A. by Xu Yuhua was amazed by these students who gave right answers to all questions given by her. After this activity Xu Yuhua was surrounded by a crowd of students requesting her signature and to take photos with her.

She's popular alright

Round Six Pairings

Some interesting matches. With the leaders not playing each other on Round Six, it will be a battle to see if the top scorers can keep racking in to points against some of the lower rated teams. India should wipe out Egypt, the huge rating difference between Egypt and every other team makes it difficult to imagine that any surprise will happen.

Meanwhile Poland and Russia is not so clear. Russia is the favorite on paper and has had an excellent tournament. However Poland is the type of team that can give a surprise when it is least expected, as with their 3.5-0.5 victory over Ukraine. China finds themselves in a similar situation. They must keep winning in order to put pressure on Russia and Georgia, and they might want to rely on their bottom boards again to take the match against Kazakhstan.

Ukraine and Armenia has Ukraine as the favorites, and they also need a win in order to have a hope of medalling. They are in fifth place right now, a position hard to believe before the beginning of the tournament, especially with Mariya Muzychuk's fabulous performance in Sochi.

Last but certainly not least USA will face Georgia. The Caucasian team is leading and has a very strong performance, but will need to tackle an American team that started surprisingly resilient, but has dropped off in the last few rounds.

Standings

Matches won give two points, draws one point and losses zero points.

Schedule

Round 1 - April 19, 15:00 Beijing

Round 2 - April 20, 15:00 Beijing

Round 3 - April 21, 15:00 Beijing

Round 4 - April 22, 15:00 Beijing

Round 5 - April 23, 15:00 Beijing

Round 6 - April 25, 15:00 Beijing

Round 7 - April 26, 15:00 Beijing

Round 8 - April 27, 15:00 Beijing

Round 9 - April 28, 11:00 Beijing

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.