Tomsk-400 wins Russian Team Ch. with brilliant Karjakin

The 2012 Russian Team Championship is under way in a microdistrict that lies 18 kilometres from the Black Sea resort of Sochi. The name "Loo" comes from one of the greatest Abazin feudal families, Lau or Loo. The open event is a seven-round Swiss with 18 teams, each sporting eight players, with six (maximum three non-Russians) playing in any individual round. The time controls are 90 minutes for 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with 30 seconds increment from move one. Games start at 15:00h local time (13:00h CEST, 12:00h London, 07:00 a.m. New York).The zero tolerance and and Sofia rules are being implemented, i.e. players must be seated at their boards when the starting gong is sounded and may not offer draws in less than 40 moves. The top four teams will qualify to represent Russia in the next European Club Cup.

Loo, a district of Sochi, lies on the Black Sea coast of Russia – Click to view larger Map

Of the 144 players 20 are rated over 2700: Caruana (2767), Karjakin (2766), Morozevich (2765), Svidler (2744), Tomashevsky (2736), Wang Hao (2733), Dominguez (2730), Jakovenko (2729), Ponomariov (2727), Leko (2720), Nepomniachtchi (2718), Giri (2717), Riazantsev (2710), Vitiugov (2709), Moiseenko (2706), Grachev (2705), Malakhov (2705), Eljanov (2704), Movsesian (2702 and Shirov (2701).

Parallel to this tournament the Russian Women’s Team Championship is being held in Loo/Sochi. There are seven teams with five players each (four playing in each round), and the event is a round robin.

Tomsk-400 wins Russian Team Ch. with brilliant Karjakin

The Russian Team Championship lived up to its promise and then some after an incredibly lively competition over one week and seven rounds. It was a chance to see top competition, returning stars, and possibly some brilliancies, and the fans got them all.

The top team entering the competition was ShSM-64, which had a choice between six 2700 players to choose from, with Fabiano Caruana on top board, but other teams had their own weapons, such as Economist with Alexander Morozevich, and Tomsk-400 with Sergey Karjakin.

Svidler and Caruana spearheaded their respective teams' ambitions

Contrary to what one might have expected from such a high-rated competition, less than 40% of the 359 games ended in draws, and the round that showed just how fierce the fighting was, was round six where a mere 27% of the games were drawn.

This fighting spirit could not be better illustrated than by the fifth round game between Svidler and Morozevich. If one were to describe the game as a draw in a Queen's Gambit Declined, 99.9% of the time, the first impulse would be to skip to the next game, and frankly, this would be entirely justified under normal circumstances. However, if you did skip past this game, you would be missing out on a kamikaze brilliancy by both players, probably the game of the tournament.

Svidler and Morozevich played the game of the tournament

In the end, one team stood above the rest, helped by one player whose uncompromising play brought in point after point. The team was Tomsk-400, who edged out St. Petersburg via board points, and the player was Sergey Karjakin whose board one score of 5.5/7 was good for a huge 2896 perfomance. This is not to suggest he was alone, as a 2813 performance by Viktor Bologan, and a 2752 by Igor Kurnosov clinched more than one match.

St. Petersburg had Peter Svidler on top board, and who did a perfectly solid job, but the secret weapon that really allowed them to sneak into a tie for first, was Armenian GM Sergei Movsesian, whose final 4.0/4 in the last rounds, was literally the deciding scorer in all foour of their final matches.

Fabiano Caruana (right) put in a creditable effort with a 2800+ performance

Top rated ShSM would have taken first on tiebreak, but a last-round draw against St. Petersburg denied them the gold.

Eugene Potemkin took extensive footage of the event. Here is one of the videos of round five.  

The women's competition was considerably weakeend by the absence of several prominent teams from previous years. The top-seed was Ladya with Nadezhda Kosintseva on board one, and true to expectations it won easily and Kosintseav was also the highest performance.

Pictures by Eugene Potemkin

Links Official tournament site All men's games in PGN All women's 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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