World Team Rd3: Cuba beats Armenia

by Albert Silver
4/22/2015 – The World Team Championship has been anything but a by-the-numbers event. If ratings always translated to results then Russia would be clear first, instead of tied for last with Egypt and the US. Instead, the early leaders after three rounds are the strongly overachieving teams of Israel and Cuba, with Armenia going down to the remarkable Cubans.
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It isn't that these two are incapable of it, since one thing the Israelis have long been doing is to consistently get results their ratings could not reconcile, with numerous podium performances ahead of stronger teams.

Round three was yet another demonstration of this quality that cannot be measured by the usual means, as they faced a similarly built Indian team but went on to crush the Indians with 3.5-0.5.

The only draw conceded was on board one between Boris Gelfand (2747) and P. Harikrishna (2731)

Gelfand enjoys playing with his pieces

Ukraine was even more merciless as they routed Egypt by a perfect 4-0. Vasil
Ivanchuk played on board one this time and dispatched Bassim Amin as well.

While Armenia defeated Ukraine in round two, in round three they fell to the event's biggest surprise, losing to Cuba with two wins to one and one draw. Yuniesky Quesada Perez was one of the heroes of the Cuban team today as he outplayed Vladimir Akopian quite handily. Lazaro Bruzon Batista was the other hero of the day as he beat Gabriel Sargissian to clinch the match.

Quesada Perez vs Sargissian

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1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Qc7 7.a3 7.Be2 d6 8.Be3 Nbd7 9.f4 b6 10.Rc1 Bb7 11.f5 e5 12.Nd5 Qd8 13.Ne6 fxe6 14.fxe6 Nc5 15.0-0 Be7 16.Bxc5 dxc5 17.Qa4+ b5 18.cxb5 0-0 19.bxa6 Bxd5 20.exd5 Qb6 21.Qc2 c4+ 22.Kh1 Qxa6 23.Bxc4 Qd6 24.Bb3 e4 25.Qc7 Ng4 26.Qxd6 Bxd6 27.g3 Rxf1+ 28.Rxf1 Rf8 29.Rc1 e3 30.Bc4 Rf2 31.Kg1 Ne5 32.Be2 Rxe2 33.Rc8+ Bf8 0-1 (33) Savchenko,B (2598)-Artemiev,V (2660) Khanty-Mansiysk 2014 7...b6 8.Be3 Bb7 9.f3 d6 10.Be2 Nbd7 11.0-0 Be7 12.Qd2 0-0 13.Rfc1 Rac8 14.a4 a5 15.Ndb5 Qb8 16.Rd1 Rcd8 17.Nxd6 Ne5 18.Ncb5 Bc6 The alternative 18...Ne8 to try to exploit the pin on the d-file does not look much more pleasant. 19.Bxb6 Nxd6 20.Bxd8 Rxd8 21.Qxa5 Ndxc4 22.Bxc4 Rxd1+ 23.Rxd1 Nxc4 24.Qc3 Ne5 and the two passed pawns and rook for the two pieces promises Black a tough fight to hold. 19.Qc3 Rxd6 20.Nxd6 Bxd6 21.Rxd6 Qxd6 22.c5! The key to White's line. Qb8? Although unpleasant, Black had to take his lumps with equanimity, and leave the exchange to its fate. 22...bxc5 23.Bxc5 Qb8 24.Bxf8 Kxf8 23.cxb6 Ba8 24.Qxa5 This is obviously terrible for Black Bxe4 25.fxe4 Neg4 26.e5 Nxe3 27.exf6 Qd6 28.Rc1 gxf6 29.b7 1–0
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Quesada Perez,Y2637Akopian,V26601–02015B4110th World Teams 20153.3

The Chinese squad held Russia to 2-2 with draws on all four boards in spite of playing them out. One curiosity worth noting is that they have also socred nothing but draws on all boards throughout the event with the exception of Ding Liren's win over Sam Shankland in round one. Speaking of whom: the somewhat luckless US Team, stars of the Tromso Olympiad, lost to Hungary as Zoltan Almasi scored the only win of that matchup against Alexandr Lenderman.

Alexander Grischuk is the top-seed of the tournament but has struggled to shine

Nevertheless he avoided Ding Liren's search for chaos

In deep concentration

What have I done?!

Photos by Arman Karakhanyan

Results of round three

Bo. 2 Israel Rtg FED - 10 India Rtg FED 3½: ½
1.1 GM Gelfand, Boris 2747 ISR - GM Harikrishna, P. 2731 IND ½ - ½
1.2 GM Sutovsky, Emil 2628 ISR - GM Sethuraman, S.P. 2634 IND 1 - 0
1.3 GM Smirin, Ilia 2652 ISR - GM Sasikiran, Krishnan 2654 IND 1 - 0
1.4 GM Postny, Evgeny 2636 ISR - GM Sengupta, Deep 2576 IND 1 - 0
Bo. 3 Ukraine Rtg FED - 1 Egypt Rtg FED 4 : 0
2.1 GM Ivanchuk, Vassily 2731 UKR - GM Amin, Bassem 2634 EGY 1 - 0
2.2 GM Eljanov, Pavel 2733 UKR - GM Shoker, Samy 2482 EGY 1 - 0
2.3 GM Kryvoruchko, Yuriy 2686 UKR - IM Ezat, Mohamed 2479 EGY 1 - 0
2.4 GM Moiseenko, Alexander 2697 UKR - GM Adly, Ahmed 2595 EGY 1 - 0
Bo. 4 Cuba Rtg FED - 9 Armenia Rtg FED 2½:1½
3.1 GM Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2729 CUB - GM Aronian, Levon 2770 ARM ½ - ½
3.2 GM Bruzon Batista, Lazaro 2691 CUB - GM Sargissian, Gabriel 2674 ARM 1 - 0
3.3 GM Quesada Perez, Yuniesky 2629 CUB - GM Akopian, Vladimir 2656 ARM 1 - 0
3.4 GM Gonzalez Vidal, Yuri 2557 CUB - GM Melkumyan, Hrant 2651 ARM 0 - 1
Bo. 5 China Rtg FED - 8 Russia Rtg FED 2 : 2
4.1 GM Ding, Liren 2751 CHN - GM Grischuk, Alexander 2794 RUS ½ - ½
4.2 GM Yu, Yangyi 2724 CHN - GM Karjakin, Sergey 2757 RUS ½ - ½
4.3 GM Bu, Xiangzhi 2681 CHN - GM Jakovenko, Dmitry 2744 RUS ½ - ½
4.4 GM Wei, Yi 2703 CHN - GM Vitiugov, Nikita 2736 RUS ½ - ½
Bo. 6 USA Rtg FED - 7 Hungary Rtg FED 1½:2½
5.1 GM Shankland, Samuel L 2661 USA - GM Leko, Peter 2713 HUN ½ - ½
5.2 GM Lenderman, Aleksandr 2617 USA - GM Almasi, Zoltan 2698 HUN 0 - 1
5.3 GM Akobian, Varuzhan 2622 USA - GM Rapport, Richard 2710 HUN ½ - ½
5.4 GM Naroditsky, Daniel 2640 USA - GM Balogh, Csaba 2651 HUN ½ - ½

Current standings

Rk Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  TB1   TB2   TB3 
1 Israel  *          3½ 2½     2 5 8.0 39.0
2 Cuba    *    2     2½ 2½     5 7.0 39.3
3 Ukraine      *        1½ 2½   4 4 8.0 32.8
4 Hungary   2    *  2       2½   4 6.5 39.5
5 China       2  *      2 2½   4 6.5 35.5
6 India ½          *      2 3 3 5.5 23.0
7 Armenia 1½ 1½ 2½        *        2 5.5 42.5
8 Russia   1½ 1½   2      *      1 5.0 35.5
9 USA       1½ 1½ 2      *    1 5.0 30.5
10 Egypt 2   0     1        *  1 3.0 21.5

Tie Break 1: Matchpoints (2 for wins, 1 for draws, 0 for losses)
Tie Break 2: points (game-points)
Tie Break 3: FIDE Sonneborn-Berger

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Born in the US, he grew up in Paris, France, where he completed his Baccalaureat, and after college moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He had a peak rating of 2240 FIDE, and was a key designer of Chess Assistant 6. In 2010 he joined the ChessBase family as an editor and writer at ChessBase News. He is also a passionate photographer with work appearing in numerous publications, and the content creator of the YouTube channel, Chess & Tech.

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