CF St. Petersburg wins Russian team championship

4/14/2013 – It was close, both in the open and the women's sections, with match point ties for first, and both winners taking gold by just 1.5 game points. Key was Alexander Grischuk's win on the black side of an instructive Spanish against Ian Nepomniatchi, while in the women's a topsy turvy win by Ekatrina Atalik against Alexandra Kosteniuk did not change the final result. Pictures and videos galore.

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Russian Team Championship 2013 in Loo, Sochi

The 20th Russian Team Championships took place from April 7th to 13th 2013 in Loo, which is part of the city of Sochi, one of the southernmost places of Russia. The teams had 88 grandmasters, 26 of whom sported ratings of 2700 or higher, included GMs, like Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alexander Grischuk, Alexander Morozevich, Vassily Ivanchuk, Peter Svidler, Peter Leko, Gata Kamsky and Dimitri Jakovenko.

The open section was won by SPb Chess Fed (above), which represents the Chess Federation of St. Petersburg and fielded GMs Peter Svidler, 2747, Nikita Vitiugov, 2712, Leinier Dominguez Perez, 2723, Sergei Movsesian, 2695, Zahar Efimenko, 2697, Vadim Zvjaginsev, 2658, Ildar Khairullin, 2660 and Maxim Matlakov, 2653. The average rating was 2706. The second placed club Malakhit Chess Club had a rating average of 2738 and was the top seed in the event.

The tournament came down to the wire as SPb Chess Fed led the tournament by one match point going into the final round. However, with every team fielding a near 2700 rating average, any result was possible. PGMB Rostov held their own in boards one through five drawing every game while their sixth and last board, Ivan Popov, dealt an important blow to SPb Chess by defeating Matlakov and giving the match to Rostov. Top seed Malakhit needed to win their last round match against SHSM "Nashe Nasledie" Moskow to come out with first place.

Things started off well as Malakhit's Alexander Grischuk defeated Ian Nepomniatchi in the black side of an instructive early d3 Spanish.

Alexander Grischuk before the final fateful game

However the young talent from the Moskow team, Danil Dubov, absolutely annihilated veteran Viktor Bologan, securing the 3-3 draw that allowed Malakhit to catch SPb, but unfortunately for them still relegated them to second place because of the game point tiebreak.

There are literally hundreds of videos to watch on Eugene Potemkin's Youtube channel

Final Ranking after seven rounds

Rk. SNo Team
 gms
 +
 =
 –
TB1
TB2
1 4 SPb Chess Fed
7
5
1
1
11
26.0
2 1 Malakhit Chess Club
7
4
3
0
11
24.5
3 5 Yugra
7
4
2
1
10
25.0
4 6 PGMB Rostov
7
5
0
2
10
24.0
5 2 Economist-SGSEU
7
4
1
2
9
26.0
6 8 Navigator
7
3
2
2
8
24.5
7 11 Zhiguli
7
3
2
2
8
24.0
8 3 SHSM "Nashe Nasledie" Moskow
7
3
2
2
8
23.0
9 7 AGU - Belorechensk
7
3
1
3
7
23.5
10 16 Atom
7
3
1
3
7
16.5
11 10 M.I.Chigorin Chess Club
7
3
0
4
6
21.5
12 9 Kazan-2013
7
3
0
4
6
21.0
13 14 Rakita Chess Club
7
3
0
4
6
20.5
14 15 Yamal
7
3
0
4
6
19.5
15 12 Politekhnik
7
2
2
3
6
18.5
16 17 Tverskaya obl.
7
2
0
5
4
14.5
17 13 EGU-Perspektiva
7
1
1
5
3
15.5
18 18 Kaluzhskaya obl.
7
0
0
7
0
10.0

Tie Break 1: Matchpoints (2 for wins, 1 for Draws, 0 for Losses) Tie Break 2: points (game-points). All individual and team results ranking crosstable can be found here.

Women's section

The round robin tournament was finally won by Yugra (or Ugra) from Khanty-Mansiysk, which edged out SHSM "Nashe Nasledie" from Moscow by just 1.5 game points. It could have been even closer, as we describe below.

Rk. Team
1
2
3
4
5
6
 TB1 
 TB2 
1 Yugra
 * 
2
3
3
4
2
8
14.0
2 SHSM "Nashe Nasledie" Moskow
2
 * 
2½
2
3
3
8
12.5
3 AGU - Belorechensk
1
1½
 * 
4
2
2
4
10.5
4 M.I.Chigorin Chess Club
1
2
0
 * 
2
2½
4
7.5
5 Economist Saratov
0
1
2
2
 * 
2½
4
7.5
6 Ladya Kazan
2
1
2
1½
1½
 * 
2
8.0

Full pairings and results can be found here

An important game in this event was in the last round, between IM Ekaterina Atalik (above) and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk. It did not change the final result – both Yugra and SHSM "Nashe Nasledie" Moskow were on the road to 4-0 victories (over Economist Saratov and Ladya Kazan). A win by Kosteniuk would not have decisively changed the final standings. But the game is so nerve-racking that it made the rounds on the Internet.

[Event "14th TCh-RUS w 2013"] [Site "Loo RUS"] [Date "2013.04.13"] [Round "5"] [White "Atalik, Ekaterina"] [Black "Kosteniuk, Alexandra"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "E47"] [WhiteElo "2455"] [BlackElo "2496"] [PlyCount "115"] [EventDate "2013.04.07"] [WhiteTeam "Ladya Kazan"] [BlackTeam "SHSM Nashe Nasledie Moskow"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 c5 6. Nge2 d5 7. cxd5 cxd4 8. exd4 Nxd5 9. O-O Nc6 10. Nxd5 Qxd5 11. a3 Be7 12. Be3 Bf6 13. Qc2 g6 14. Rfd1 Qd8 15. Be4 {White has obtained as much as one can ask from an Isolated Queen Pawn (IQP) position. Her position is active, she is ready to push d5, she is better developed and she hasn't had to give up the pair of bishops or any other important strategical concession.} Bd7 16. d5 exd5 17. Bxd5 $6 (17. Rxd5 {Was both more obvious and stronger, as the black queen has no comfortable place to hide.} Qe7 $2 18. Bc5 $18) 17... Qc8 18. Rac1 Ne7 19. Qb1 Bc6 20. Bxc6 Nxc6 21. Nf4 Be5 22. b4 Bxf4 23. Bxf4 Qg4 24. Be3 Rfd8 {Clearly White has allowed Black somewhat back into the game, but the presence of a bishop against a knight in an open board guarantees that she will have long lasting pressure with correct play.} 25. h3 Qh4 26. b5 Nd4 27. Rc7 Nf5 28. Rxd8+ (28. Rxb7 Nxe3 29. fxe3 {is simply an extra pawn for White.}) 28... Qxd8 29. Bf4 Qd5 30. Kh2 Re8 31. Qc2 $4 {Very careless.} Nh4 32. f3 Nxf3+ $1 {An obvious yet very strong sacrifice. White cannot retake, so she is down a pawn and her king will be exposed.} 33. Kg3 Nd4 34. Qc4 Ne2+ 35. Kh2 Qf5 36. Bd6 Qf6 $4 ( 36... Qf1 37. Bc5 b6 {And the bishop has no retreat along the g1-b6 diagonal, therefore the game is over.}) 37. Qc5 b6 38. Rc8 Qe6 39. Rxe8+ Qxe8 40. Qe5 Qd7 $4 {Black avoids the exchange of queens, but this costs her the game.} 41. Be7 $1 {The dual threat of Qb8+ and Qxe2 is impossible to parry, and Atalik doesn't let Kosteniuk recover this time.} f6 42. Qxe2 Qc7+ 43. g3 Kf7 44. Bb4 h5 45. Kg2 Qd7 46. Qe4 Qd8 47. Qc4+ Kg7 48. Qe6 Qd4 49. h4 Qb2+ 50. Kf3 g5 51. Qe7+ Kg6 52. Qe8+ Kh7 53. Qf7+ Kh8 54. hxg5 fxg5 55. Qxh5+ Kg7 56. Qxg5+ Kf7 57. Qf5+ Kg7 58. Qd3 {A topsy turvy game, but the victor is always the one to make the next to last mistake.} 1-0

Photos by WIM Maria Fominykh

Links

A selection of 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.