Novi Sad: Azerbaijan wins Gold – by one rook move

This massive event, with 38 men's and 28 women's teams, four boards per round each – is taking place in the famous chess city of Novi Sad in Serbia (formerly Yugoslavia).

Round nine (final)

Two teams went into the final round tied for first: Russia and Azerbaijan had 13 out of 16 possible match points each, two points ahead of the rest. Five teams – Ukraine, Armenia, Netherlands, Spain and Israel – could only hope to tie for first, which required that both the leading teams would lose their matches, hardly a likely scenario.

As it turned out Russia had yet another Alexander Morozevich win on board two: Francisco Vallejo was convincingly dispatched in just 32 moves of an aggressive Najdorf. However Evgeny Alekseev spoilt it all by going down badly to Ivan Salgado Lopez, 170 points below him on the FIDE rating scale. Russia and Spain had tied 2:2.

In the other critical match Jan Smeets agreed to a draw against Teimour Radjabov after just twenty moves, Sipke Ernst got one with black in 26 moves against Rauf Mamedov, and Erwin L'Ami took a draw with the white pieces against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, 115 rating points above him, in 35 moves. Only Vugar Gashimov was left, struggling to make something out of a extra pawn in a rook ending against Daniel Stellwagen. Everything looked like a 2-2 draw for Azerbaijan and sharing first place with the Russians.

Gashimov,V (2740) - Stellwagen,D (2630) [B12]
17th TCh-Eur Novi Sad SRB (9), 30.10.2009
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c5 6.Be3 cxd4 7.Nxd4 Ne7 8.Nd2 Nbc6 9.N2f3 Bg4 10.0-0 a6 11.Rc1 Bxf3 12.Nxf3 g6 13.c4 Bg7 14.cxd5 Qxd5 15.Qa4 Qa5 16.Qb3 0-0 17.Bc5 Rfe8 18.Bd6 Nxe5 19.Nxe5 Bxe5 20.Rc5 Qd2 21.Bxe5 Qxe2 22.Qxb7 Nd5 23.Bg3 Rad8 24.h3 Re7 25.Qb3 Red7 26.a3 h5 27.Rc2 Qb5 28.Qf3 Ne7 29.Bc7 Rc8 30.Rfc1 Qd5 31.Qe2 Qb7 32.Be5 Rxc2 33.Qxc2 Rd5 34.Qc3 Kh7 35.Bh8 Nf5 36.g4 e5 37.gxf5 Kxh8 38.fxg6 fxg6 39.Qc6 Qxc6 40.Rxc6 a5 41.Rxg6 Kh7 42.Rb6 Kg7 43.a4 Rd4 44.b3 Rd3 45.Kg2 e4 46.Rb5 Kg6 47.h4 Kh6 48.Re5 Rxb3 49.Rxe4 Ra3 50.f3 Kg6 51.Kg3 Kf6 52.Kf4 Ra1 53.Rc4 Ra3 54.Ke4 Ke6 55.f4 Ra1 56.Rc6+ Kf7 57.Rc4 Ke6 58.Rc6+ Kf7 59.Kf5 Rxa4 60.Rc7+ Kf8 61.Ra7 Ra1 62.Kg6 a4 63.f5 Rg1+ 64.Kf6 Kg8 65.Rxa4 Rg4 66.Ra8+ Kh7 67.Ra7+ Kg8 68.Ra8+ Kh7 69.Kf7 Rxh4 70.f6

Black has fought valiantly for sixty-nine moves and should be able to hold the draw quite easily. But in one move he throws this great effort out the window – and hands the gold medal to Azerbaijan: 70...Rf4?? Mate in 33, say Fritz after a quick look at the position. Black should have moved the rook to e4, to keep the white king on the f-file, or to c4 or b4 to give checks from the side, or to h1, h2 or h3 to give checks from a sufficient distance. 71.Ke6! h4 (after 71...Re4+ 72.Kf5 Black has no more checks) 72.f7 Kg6 73.f8Q Rxf8 74.Rxf8 Kg5 75.Ke5. It is hopeless: 1-0.

This result brought Azerbaijan Gold and the Russian team the Silver medal. The other results of relevance for the top places were the following:

• All results from the round eight Open section can be found here

Final standings – Open section

Gold medal winners: the Azerbaijan team with their captain GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili (left)

Silver for the team from Russia, who were unlucky not to take first place

The win over Israel brought the Ukrainian team Bronze, while the German victory pushed that team from place eight to five. The Netherlands, in place five after the penultimate round, dropped to place nine.

Women's Section

In the women's section we had a similar situation: Russia and Georgia led the field by three points and could not be caught by the others. So both sides were fighting for Gold. Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk tried for 65 moves to beat Elina Danielian of Armenia, but in the end she had to settle for a draw. Two other games were likewise fighting draws, but on board three Nadezhda Kosintseva fought well to score a decisive victory over Lilit Galojan.

In the other key match GM Nana Dzagnidze on board one for Georgia beat WGM Elena-Luminita Cosma of Romania. On board four Bela Khotenashvili took the full point for Georgia against Alina Motoc, but Carmen Voicu struck back for Romania with a win over Nino Khurtsidze. This match finished with the same score as Russia vs Armenia.

The other results of relevance for the top places were the following:

• All results from the round nine Women's section can be found here

Final standings – Women

The winners of Gold were, according to the tiebreak rules, were the Russian ladies. They had scored 26 board points to 24 for the Georgian team.

The Gold medallists from Russia – on the left, looking very solemn, is trainer Yuri Dokhoian, formerly the second of Garry Kasparov. On the right is Boris Kutin, the current President of the ECU. The players between them are Nadezhda and Tatiana Kosintseva, Marina Romanko, Valentina Gunina and Alexandra Kosteniuk.

The Georgian team got Silver, by virtue of two board points less than the Russians

Performance

The best performance of the event was displayed by Ukrainian GM Pavel Eljanov, who scored a sterling 6.0/8 points and played as if he had a rating of 2823. In second place was Alexander Morozevich, just three performance points behind Eljanov. Norwegian teenager Jon Ludvig Hammer, who had led the performance field for so many rounds, finished in fourth place but with a sensational 2792 performance, 207 more than his nominal FIDE rating.

The best Open Section players

The best Women's Section players

The final round victory of Nadezhda Kosintseva pushed her ahead of her team-mate Alexander Kosteniuk in the performance list. Nadezhda played all nine games on board two and scored 8.0 points. Her performance was that of a 2665 player. In second place was World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, who also performed above the 2600 mark.

Video reports by Europe Echecs

Videos and pictures in this report by GM Robert Fontaine for Europe Echecs

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