World Team 07: A close one

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 7

Everything went as expected today in Turkey.

Van Wely and Kramnik share a laugh before the game. Kramnik was probably in
a better mood after the match though.

The Russian team destroyed the Netherlands with a 3.5-0.5 score. There simply was
no competition; Russia simply showed better class in pretty much every board and
took an important victory that allows them to stay on Ukraine's toes.

Giri was not a happy camper today

Ukraine on the other hand had a tough day today. They beat Egypt by the minimum margin but this match could have gone very differently had Samy Shoker found some resources in a complex position and if Ezat Mohamed hadn't blundered in a very wild situation. But as things happened Ukraine scores yet another full match point.

Solak used to be Turkey's #1 but Ipatov's incredible past few months have placed him in second board

In the Armenia-Turkey match the stronger country simply won with the white pieces and drew with black to overwhelm 3-1. Aronian won against Ipatov without any problems while Sargissian outplayed Yilmaz in a position in which only White has real winning chances, even if they are not great.

Akobian won. And with black!

In the USA-Germany match Akobian scored a fantastic and important win with Black in a Petroff against Baramidze to secure the team's win. Robson missed his chance against Naiditsch but still held a draw. Nakamura only needed to draw against Meier to win the match but Nakamura being himself he decided to play on for a win and he somehow got it, so the American team won 3-1 and moves up in the leaderboard.

Robson doesn't play a lot of poker

Meier got ground down today by a persistent Nakamura

China also didn't have problems against their rivals as a clean 3-1 win against Azerbaijan puts them in a solid third place in the tournament, only half a match point behind Russia and one match point from Ukraine; though they are pursued by Armenia, America and the Netherlands.

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 Anastasiya Karlovich

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.