World Cities Chess Team Champion in Al Ain, UAE

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12/27/2012 – This Olympiad-like competition is held every two years, and is scheduled to be hosted five times, until 2020, by the Al Ain Chess Club in the United Arab Emirates. 24 teams from cities all over the world gathered for the preliminaries, and 16 qualified out of round robin groups for the knockout phase. There the eight for the quarterfinals went through. Here are all the games and results.

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World Cities Chess Team Champion

This event is held at two-year intervals, with teams representing cities (maximum one city per country). National federations are eligible to play with their national team members representing a city. The FIDE World Cities Championship is a sequel to the Chess Olympiad and Continental Cities Championships.

The Al Ain Chess Club of the United Arab Emirates Chess Federation has committed to organize the World Cities Championship for the Sheikh Zayed Cup for five times until 2020. The prize fund for the 2012 edition is $150,000.

24 teams were at the start of the tournament. Each was ranked by the average rating of their four strongest players as per the 1st December FIDE rating list. If two or more teams have the same average they are ranked according to the rating of the fifth player and then alphabetically. The teams were divided into groups of four teams each, and each group played a single round robin tournament. The top two from each group advanced to the Round-of-16, together with the four best 3rd placed teams.

At the opening ceremony, which also included...

... a local music and dance performance

The start of the event, with FIDE officials applauding the game Grandelius vs Saleh

The setup in the playing hall in Al Ain

Here are the results of the preliminary rounds, with the qualifying teams shown in bold:

Rk	Team	1	2	3	4	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	Lund - Sweden	*	2½	2	2½	5	7.0	0
2	London - UK	1½	*	3	3½	4	8.0	0
3	Dhaka - Bangladesh	2	1	*	3	3	6.0	0
4	Al Ain - UAE	1½	½	1	*	0	3.0	0
Rk	Team	1	2	3	4	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	Saratov - RUS	*	2½	2½	3	6	8.0	0
2	Ptuj - SLO	1½	*	2½	2	3	6.0	0
3	Tashkent - UZB	1½	1½	*	3½	2	6.5	0
4	Chennai - IND	1	2	½	*	1	3.5	0
Rk	Team	1	2	3	4	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	Lviv - UKR	*	1	3	4	4	8.0	0
2	Athens - GRE	3	*	1½	3	4	7.5	0
3	Riga - LAT	1	2½	*	3½	4	7.0	0
4	Canberra - AUS	0	1	½	*	0	1.5	0
Rk	Team	1	2	3	4	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	Astana - KAZ	*	2	3½	2½	5	8.0	0
2	Baku - AZE	2	*	3	2½	5	7.5	0
3	Istanbul - TUR	½	1	*	3	2	4.5	0
4	Timisoara - ROM	1½	1½	1	*	0	4.0	0
Rk	Team	1	2	3	4	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	Paris - FRA	*	3	3	4	6	10.0	14.00
2	Chicago - USA	1	*	3	3½	4	7.5	6.50
3	Teheran - IRI	1	1	*	3½	2	5.5	1.00
4	Kampala - UGA	0	½	½	*	0	1.0	0.00
Rk	Team	1	2	3	4	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	Hoogeveen _ NED	*	2½	2	4	5	8.5	40.5
2	Novi Sad - SRB	1½	*	2½	3	4	7.0	35.5
3	Wu Xi - CHN	2	1½	*	2	2	5.5	33.5
4	Cairo - EGY	0	1	2	*	1	3.0	18.0

Pairings for the knockout phase (Round of 16)

You could feel the tension as the knockout phase started with the Round-of-16 in Al Ain: Athens, Tashkent, Saratov, Hoogeveen, Baku, Wu Xi, Lund and Novi Sad advance to the Quarterfinals.

The biggest upset was scored by Wu Xi as the Chinese team held the highly favored Lviv to a 2-2 draw. The tie was broken by the Berlin system which gives more weight to points on the top boards. Wu Xi had won two games on boards one and two, and lost the games on boards three and four. The match between Lund and Riga ended 2-2 as well, with Lund advancing because of a win on board two and a loss on board four. Novi Sad advanced despite a 2-2 draw against Ptuj of Slovenia due to a board 1 victory by Serb Ivan Ivanisevic. A summary of the eight matches is to be found in the official bulletin here. Here are the full results:

1.1	4	Baku:AZE		2½:1½	1	Paris:FRA
1	GM	Safarli Eltaj	2626	½:½	GM	Vachier-Lagrave Maxime	2711
2	GM	Guseinov Gadir	2628	0:1	GM	Fressinet Laurent	2700
3	GM	Mamedov Rauf	2647	1:0	GM	Edouard Romain	2686
4	GM	Durarbayli Vasif	2587	1:0	GM	Hamdouchi Hicham	2610
1.2	10	Chicago:USA		1:3	2	Hoogeveen:NED
1	GM	Akobian Varuzhan	2622	0:1	GM	Giri Anish	2720
2	GM	Ehlvest Jaan	2603	½:½	GM	Sokolov Ivan	2667
3	IM	Hungaski Robert Andrew	2469	½:½	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2663
4	GM	Finegold Benjamin	2498	0:1	GM	Smeets Jan	2614
1.3	3	Lviv:UKR		2:2	16	Wu Xi:CHN
1	GM	Moiseenko Alexander	2710	0:1	GM	Wang Yue	2696
2	GM	Kryvoruchko Yuriy	2671	0:1		Ji Dan	2341
3	GM	Fedorchuk Sergey A.	2661	1:0	IM	Li Wenliang	2424
4	GM	Kravtsiv Martyn	2593	1:0		Fang Yuxiang	2103
1.4	15	Dhaka:BAN		½:3½	5	Saratov:RUS
1	GM	Murshed Niaz	2464	½:½	GM	Tomashevsky Evgeny	2725
2	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2518	0:1	GM	Lysyj Igor	2617
3	IM	Minhazuddin Ahmed	2401	0:1	GM	Romanov Evgeny	2616
4	FM	Chatterjee Debaraj	2307	0:1	GM	Shaposhnikov Evgeny	2544
1.5	7	Ptuj:SLO		2:2	6	Novi Sad:SRB
1	GM	Lenic Luka	2637	0:1	GM	Ivanisevic Ivan	2633
2	GM	Beliavsky Alexander G	2630	½:½	GM	Markus Robert	2619
3	GM	Borisek Jure	2560	½:½	GM	Perunovic Milos	2614
4	GM	Skoberne Jure	2549	1:0	GM	Popovic Dusan	2579
1.6	9	Athens:GRE		3:1	8	London:ENG
1	GM	Papaioannou Ioannis	2618	1:0	GM	Short Nigel D	2692
2	GM	Banikas Hristos	2620	½:½	GM	Howell David W L	2634
3	GM	Halkias Stelios	2561	1:0	GM	Williams Simon K	2515
4	IM	Tzermiadianos Andreas	2434	½:½	IM	Zhou Yang-Fan	2419
1.7	14	Tashkent:UZB		2½:1½	11	Astana:KAZ
1	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2530	½:½	GM	Jumabayev Rinat	2567
2	IM	Kvon Andrey	2501	0:1	GM	Kotsur Pavel	2550
3	GM	Barsov Alexei	2510	1:0	GM	Ismagambetov Anuar	2463
4	GM	Iuldachev Saidali	2455	1:0	IM	Kuderinov Kirill	2452
1.8	13	Riga:LAT		2:2	12	Lund:SWE
1	GM	Miezis Normunds	2596	½:½	GM	Grandelius Nils	2583
2	GM	Neiksans Arturs	2534	0:1	GM	Tikkanen Hans	2575
3	GM	Sveshnikov Evgeny	2514	½:½	GM	Carlsson Pontus	2518
4	GM	Starostits Ilmars	2468	1:0	IM	Smith Axel	2484

Links

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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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