64th Russian Championship – Svidler lifts title with a round to spare

Prize fund: 90.000€ (24.000 - 17.500 - 12.500 - 11.000 - 9.000 - 7.500 - 4.000 - 2.500) Tourney mode: round robin with 7 rounds Time mode: 90 minutes/40 moves + 30 minutes + 30 seconds/move starting with the 1st move. Game start: 13:00, last round 11:00 Rest day: 12th August

64th Russian Championship Super Final

This year's Russian Championship Super Final also marks a special edition: the 64th. Oddly though, instead of some mega event with more, the tournament has been cut down from last year's eleven-round edition with twelve players to a mere seven rounds and eight players. Still, don't think that makes it a lesser event by any means, as it also brings together a fantastic field with Kramnik, Karjakin, Grischuk, Morozevich, Svidler, Nepomniachtchi, and Galkin for a 2715 average rating. Once more the Russian Federation hosts the championship at a level that few can rival, with high resolution video broadcasting and of course grandmaster commentary. Round one through four will be commented by GM Sergey Makarichev, while rounds five through seven will be commented on by world-famous coach Mark Dvoretsky.

Round six

Peter Svidler has signed off his championship campaign in style with another thumping win. His victim today was Nepomniachtchi. The burly Russian, who is reclaiming the national title after three years, made his intentions clear early in the encounter. He employed the Symmetrical English from White and worked hard to keep Black from castling by planting his queen in the exposed a2-g8 diagonal and throwing in the distracting 16. b4 break.

Nepomniachtchi passed over the chance to hound white into equality with 17….Qg4 which offers to exchange queens or seal off the weak diagonal. He instead matched his opponent's aggression with 17….Ke7, a decision that cost him dearly. Svidler immediately seized space with 18. b5 and went on to cast Black into a painful queenside bind that won him a piece in the endgame.

Six-time Russian champion Peter Svidler

The two other decisive games Grischuk-Galkin and Karjakin-Timofeev were also won by white.

Galkin, facing the Caro Kann Advance Variation, repeated the less played move 5….Be7 that had fetched him a draw from Inarkiev at the Russian Higher League Championship in June. He allowed his kingside pawn structure to be destroyed in exactly the same fashion but did not get the same counterplay -- unlike Inarkiev, Grischuk did not castle queenside.

The spectators watch the games entranced...


...while listening to the game commentary by trainer and author Mark Dvoretsky

In the long positional battle that followed, Black's main error seems to have been the opening of the a-file (He could have put off 15….axb3 and played the patient 15….b5, aiming to build up pressure with Qa5-b4 first)

Grischuk's active minor pieces proved stronger in the resulting closed pawn structure and Galkin was left clutching a useless bishop as the white queen and knight bullied their way to victory.

Timofeev was the other player to make an uncommon opening choice that boomeranged. He played 3….Nc6 against Karjakin's Nc3 variation in the French Defence and was doing reasonably well until he messed up with the tempting 12….Qg6?

White now gets the upper hand after 13. Bd2 regardless of Black's actions. In the game Black played 13….fxe5, giving white the strategic knight outpost on e5 and eventually losing an exchange for naught.

Although he was unable to win the championship this year, Karjakin is tied for
second and will decide the podium in the last round.

Morozevich, who needed to beat Kramnik from black to keep his title chances alive, drew in 56 moves of a Semi-Slav Defence after his attempts to conjure something out of a queen and knight ending proved futile despite an extra pawn.

Svidler has consequently stretched his lead to 1.5 points over Moro, Grischuk and Karjakin and is assured of his sixth national championship, the first of which he won seventeen years ago, in 1994. The final round will be played tomorrow.

Photographs by the Russian Federation (Russiachess.org)

Standings after six rounds

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN 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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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