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 is new Russian Champion.
Evgeny Tomashevsky at the start of final round
Evgeny Tomashevsky - after winning the tournament number 13 in the live-rating-list played a fine tournament and won convincingly. After three rounds he took the lead and basically kept it till the end. He finished the tournament with 7.5/11 (four wins, seven draws, and no loss), half-a-point ahead of Sergey Karjakin, who finished with 7.0/11 (three wins, eight draws, and no loss).
Five of the six games of the final round were drawn, only Igor Lysyj won against Vladislav Artemiev. After ten rounds Tomashevsky was leading the field by half-a-point which he had to defend with White against Peter Svidler. He had no troubles doing so. In his beloved Grünfeld Svidler tried an exchange sacrifice and obtained a passed pawn and counterplay - but never had serious chances to win.
Tomashevsky's draw gave Sergey Karjakin the chance to catch up to the leader - if he managed to win in the final round against Dmitry Jakovenko with Black. Karjakin tried hard but finally had to content himself with a draw and second place.
Sergey Karjakin discussing previous games with Jakovenko.
Third place went to Nikita Vitiugov.
Nikita Vitiugov
Aleksandra Goryachkina
Aleksandra Goryachkina convincingly won the women's championship with 8.0/11 (six wins, one loss, four draws). A draw against Kateryna Lagno in the final round sufficed for the title because her rival Alexandra Kosteniuk lost track in a rook endgame against Ekaterina Kovalevskaya.
Alexandra Kosteniuk before the crucial game
The 16-year old Goryachkina - she will turn 17 in September - from Orsk is the great hope of the Russian Chess Federation. In the Superfinals in Cheita she left all the players from Russia's national women's team behind her. By losing the final round Kosteniuk dropped to third place. She had the same number of points as Anastasia Bodnaruk and more Sonneborn-Berger points but the number of games with Black decided the tie-break - and thus Anastasia Bodnaruk was declared second.
Anastasia Bodnaruk
More or less happy winners: (from left to right)
Evgeny Tomashevsky, Sergey Karjakin, Nikita Vitiugov
The winner's of the women's tournament: (from left to right)
Alexandra Kosteniuk, Anastasia Bodnaruk, Aleksandra Goryachkina
Photos: Vladimir Barsky and Eteri Kublashvili
LinksThe 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. |
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