World Senior brings back legends

The official poster of the event

The 24th FIDE World Senior Championships took place at the Olympus Riviera of Katerini in Greece, with the participation of 163 players from 40 countries and a prize fund of €20.000 for the winners. The first round was on October 24, the final (eleventh) round is on November 4th.

In the past the World Seniors was held only for people above the age of 60. But this year it was held in two categories: 50+ and 65+. In the women’s section there were a little too few entries to make it into two categories. There was only one event but prizes were given to winners of both 50+ and 65+ categories.

Zurab Sturua (2524) from Georgia won the 50+ World Seniors with a score of 8.5/11. The
most notable thing about his performance is that he did not lose even a single game. He
went back home richer by €1750. (The first prize was €2000 but as Sturua and Arkell finished with the same points it was shared)

Sturua is a Georgian player who became a GM at the ripe age of 32 years. But he has some notable achievements to his credit. He has won the Georgian Championship five times and has represented his country six times in the Olympiad. He also won the masters section in Biel in 1991 and 1996. In the tournament his biggest competitor for the crown was without question GM John Nunn.

Apart from being a former Top Ten GM, John Nunn is a three-time world champion in problem
solving, a prolific author and also a PhD mathematician admitted into Oxford at the age of 15

John Nunn (2602) was the heavy favourite to win the title being the only 2600+ player in the tournament. However two losses in the tournament against Sturua and Sveshnikov ruined his chances for the gold, and he had to settle for bronze with a score of 8.0/11. For the eventual winner Sturua his win against Nunn in the sixth round was of extreme importance.

Annotations by IM Akshat Chandra

GM Keith Arkell (2450) from England finished second with 8.5/11

Keith Arkell was the British Champion is the year 2008. In the tournament he had a pretty ordinary start with a score of 4.0/6. But then Arkell picked up the pace and scored four wins on the trot which included fine wins over Bischoff, Kalegin and Hebden. A draw in the final round secured him the silver medal. There was a very lucky moment for the English player in the tournament when he won a totally lost position against Evgenvy Sveshnikov in the tenth round.

Game commented by IM Akshat Chandra:

The three winners of the 50+ category: A Georgian and two Englishmen

GM Mark Hebden (2540), who was the second seed, did not have such a great tournament
as he finished seventh with a score of 7.0/11

GM Klaus Bischoff (2504) who is a regular commentator for Playchess.com in German finished
sixth with a score of 7.0/11

Of great interest was the 65+ age category tournament. In this event you could really find true legends of our game fighting it out on the chess board. Here are a few examples of such venerable chess heroes.

GM Mihai Suba is one of the most famous grandmasters of Romania. His book "Dynamic Chess
Strategy" is a wonderful contribution to the chess literature. He finished third in the 1982 Las
Palmas Interzonal behind Ribli and Smyslov, just missing the qualification to the Candidates.
In this tournament he finished eleventh with 7.0/11.

81-year-old Evgeni Vasiukov is a true legend of the game. Look at the list of players he
has defeated in his career: Smyslov, Bronstein, Petrosian, Tal, Keres, Taimanov, Geller and
Polugaevsky! Do I need to say anything more! He finished 19th in the event with 6.5/11.

IM Herman Claudius Van Riemsdijk (left) tied for first with 8.0/11, though he did not have the
best tiebreak. This three-time Brazilian champion has the record for the most participations
in the national finals (30 times!), and played for Brazil in the Olympiads no fewer than 11 times!

The winner of the above 65 years event was the French GM Anatoly Vaisser with a score
of 8.0/11. This is his third win at the World Seniors, the previous ones being in 2010 and 2013.

The top winners of the above 65 category: Gold to Anatoly Vaisser (2531) from France, Silver
to Yuri Balashov (2429) from Russia and Bronze to Viktor Kupreichik (2405) of Belarus

In the women section there was a fear of inadequate participation. Hence, the organizers had made the following arrangement right from the start:

The number of women players above the age of 65 years turned out to be less than ten. There were only eight. Hence the two categories were merged and totally 25 players fought for the title of World Women Senior Champion.

In the end it was WIM Svetlana Mednikova of Russia who won the title
of 50+ women with a score of 8.5/11

Nona Gaprindashvili won the Women's Above 65 category and also
finished second in the overall tournament with a score of 8.0/11

The woman that you see in the picture above is a living chess legend. Born in 1941, Nona  became the Women’s World Champion at the age of 21 years by beating Elisabeth Bykova. She was the Women’s World Champion for 16 years from 1962-1978, defending her title successfully four times in that period. She finally lost her World title to Maia Chiburandize. Did you know: who was the first woman to achieve the grandmaster title? It was Nona Gaprindashvili. She has played in twelve Olympiads (eleven for Soviet Union and one for Georgia) winning 25 medals. Among them are eleven team gold medals and nine individual gold medals. In 1986 Dubai Olympiad, she played ten games and won all of them finishing with 10.0/10. Now that is truly mind-boggling! She was such a popular player that a company in Tbilisi, Georgia started manufacturing Gaprindashvili perfume bottles.

You can find more pictures of the great player by the superb photographer Fred Lucas in
this wonderful article previously published on ChessBase when she turned 65 years old

The winners of the 50+ category: WIM Svetlana Mednikova, WGM Yelena Ankudinova and WIM Nino Melashvili

The winners of 65+ category: GM Nona Gaprindashvili, WGM Elena Fatalibekova and WGM Tamar Khmiadashvili

Beautiful girls helped in the organization of the event. From left to right: Angelina Kontini, Xenia
Kalesi, Effie Andr, Dimitra Vatkali, Silver Cat and Aleksandra Dimitijevic.

Keith Arkell with Dimitra Vatkali

John Nunn is quite a popular figure!

As previously mentioned, John Nunn is an avid problem solver on the chess board. He found a nice study like solution in his game against Mark Hebden.

Annotations by IM Sagar Shah

This is a classic case of decoy and was also used in an old game by one of Lasker’s opponent named Rudolf Loman.

An eleven round tournament would be quite tiring even foryoungsters, so it was natural that there was a rest day after six rounds. The players were taken for a tour of the beautiful city of Thessaloniki which is around 70 kilometres from Katerini where the tournament was being held. We leave you with four beautiful pictures from the second largest city of Greece.

The lovely and restful open space where one can stroll or just sit back and enjoy the day

On the shore is a ship from yesteryear. Well.... yesteryesteryear.

A group picture of those who opted for the tour

A special thanks to ChessBase's youngest author: the 15-year-old
IM Akshat Chandra for his analysis

Links Official tournament site All Open 50+ games in PGN All Open 65+ games in PGN All Women 50+ and 65+ games in PGN The games were 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.