World Team 04: China shocks Armenia

The World Chess Team Championship is currently being held in Antalya, Turkey. The tournament runs from November 26th to December 5th. The tournament is a round robin tournament between the best countries in the world who are sending their top participants. The event will have zero tolerance rules, no draw offers for the first 30 moves and will be played under the standard team tournament system with two points given to a match winner, one for a draw and zero the the loser of a match. Tiebreaks will be decided by board points. The time control is the FIDE 90 minutes for 40 moves and an additional 30 minutes at move 40 with thirty second increment throughout the game.

Round 4

China scored an incredibly important win today. Ukraine is quite happy they won
too, as Armenia was their closest competitor.

The big news of the day is that the young team of China was able to beat Armenia in a great match. Sargissian was unable to do much with his slight advantage against Yu Yangyi and the game ended in a perpetual check in a long queen endgame. Ding Liren was able to obtain a huge advantage with black against Movsesian with a brutal and powerful kingside attack in a King's Indian, fueled by a strong pawn sacrifice and domination of the dark squares.

Li Chao's tiger balm (which he is applying) didn't help him today, but his team won regardless

Meanwhile on board one Aronian struck back. He was somehow able to hold on to a weak pawn and eventually he traded it off for a healthy one and won a nice technical masterpiece. It all came down to Bu Xiangzhi vs. Akopian on board four. The Chinese player with White was up an exchange for what seemed to be an eternity, but he was pestered by checks against his weak king. He was able to consolidate and the trade of queens sealed Armenia's fate.

Big Vlad was down a pawn most of the game but held a draw against Mamedov

In a big match Russia won against Azerbaijan. Karjakin outplayed Safarli in a very complex Paulsen English Attack position and the remaining three draws gave Russia the typical score that they win by: 2.5-1.5.

Karjakin is still a huge factor in team tournaments

Labib had no chance against Akobian today and lost in less than 30 moves

The Egypta-USA match went very much as expected. USA had no problems winning on their top boards even without Nakamura and Robson held Amin Bassem to a draw with black.

Wesley So, from the Philippines, is America's coach

Ukraine was able to retain their lead with important wins by Kryvoruchko and Ivanchuk. The first simply steam rolled over Baramidze after the German played made some very strange decisions in a Breyer Spanish. Khenkin seemed to eager to draw Ivanchuk as he played an exchange slav but the Ukrainian wasn't having any of it, instead of a simple draw he grinded out a long endgame and eventually won. Ukraine has won all of its matches and sits very comfortably on first place.

The Netherlands squashed Turkey with a brutal 3.5-0.5 score. Simply convincing.

Ipatov has had a series of amazing results but Giri put him in his place today

Results

Standings

Teams receive two points for a match win, one for a draw and zero for a loss

Replay today's games

Photos by Fatma Koc Ozturk

Links Official tournament site PGN of all games 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.