Superfinals 7: Tomashevsky, Kosteniuk, Goryachkina

The 68th Men's Russian Chess Championship and the 65th Women's Russian Chess Championship is played in Chita from 9. to 21. August. The competition is held by the Russian Chess Federation, the Elena and Gennady Timchenko Charitable Foundation and the Zabaykalsky Krai Chess Federation, with support from the government of the Zabaykalsky Krai. The competition partners are Norilsk Nickel and the Baikalsk Mining Company.

 Evgeny Tomashevsky played an interesting and fine positional game against Ildar Khairullin that culminated in a mating attack in the endgame.

Evgeny Tomashevsky still has four rounds to play before he can be really happy.

Vladislav Artemiev, who after six rounds had shared the lead with Nikita Vitiugov and Tomashevsky lost with Black against Sergey Karjakin.

Sergey Karjakin

Sergey Karjakin now is half a point behind Tomashevsky and shares second and third place with Nikita Vitiugov, who drew in a fighting game with Black against Igor Lysyj.

It was not the only interesting game of the round. Denis Khismatullin, for example, sacrificed his queen against Daniil Dubov because he hoped to mate the enemy king.

Another exciting struggle was the game between Ivan Bukavshin and Peter Svidler. It was full of tactical complications that finally led to a draw.

Standings after round seven

Games of round seven

Women

In the women's tournament Aleksandra Goryachkina scored an important victory by winning with Black against Olga Girya - though Girya really helped to give her opponent the full point.

Olga Girya overpressed with White against Aleksandra Goryachkina

Alexandra Kosteniuk won more convincingly. She defeated Anastasia Savina in a tactically complicated game.

After seven rounds Alexandra Kosteniuk has 5.5/7 and leads together with Aleksandra Goryachkina

One point behind follows Kateryna Lagno, who played with White against Alina Kashlinskaya and in a Nimzo-Indian demonstrated how strong the two bishops can be.

Kateryna Lagno is curious to see what her rivals do.

Top seed Valentina Gunina suffered another setback because she was too combative. She played with Black against Ekaterina Kovalevskaya and in a double rook ending she avoided in which she had no advantage she avoided a repetition of moves but soon found herself in a worse position which she could not hold. Thus Gunina continues to be the only player who did not even make a single draw.

Standings after round seven

Games of round seven

Photos: Vladimir Barsky and Eteri Kublashvili

Links Official tournament site Games in PGN (Men) Games in PGN (Women) The games will be 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.