The host country Lithuania secured gold with 17 out of 18 match points and 29½ game points in this first-ever World 50+ Chess Team Championship – a four person team event of nine rounds. Two points were awarded for each match win, one point for a draw and zero for a loss. England achieved silver with 15 match points and 25 game points. Russia Women got bronze with 12 match points and 22½ game points. No Russian Open Team competed.

Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas and Georgian grandmaster Azmaiparashvili cut the ribbon
and the Championship was off to a flying start

World 50+ Chess Team Championship final ranking after nine rounds

It should be noted that the women's teams competed in the same event as the men's. There
was no 'Open' event and Women's event, there was only the World Senior Team Championship.

Stewart Reuben, who had come to Lithuania as a player of team England at 65+ age group, wrote about the 50+ group: "England 1, captained by Terry Chapman, came unstuck against Lithuania in Round Four, losing 2½-1½. Had they drawn that match matters might have been very different. They would have been leading the event then, Lithuania having already previously drawn. England then somewhat lost heart and cruised through to a comfortable second place. Keith played very solidly, winning four and drawing four games. As you can see from the table, Terry Chapman was the other star."

Englishmen (right) lost one match point to Rositsan ir Maccabi LTU

Nona Gaprindashvili (left) headed the Georgian women's team

She was the first female recognized as a full grandmaster, and Mikhail Tal commented in
his autobiography that she was the first woman he had met who impressed him as such

World 65+ Chess Team Championship ranking crosstable

Stewart Reuben wrote: "The England I team would have benefitted from a reserve. All four players are very experienced but Keith Richardson could not handle his clock and John Wheeler was somewhat rusty. Julian won three of his nine games. A Russian GM Nikolai Pushkov managed to draw with me from a somewhat inferior position. Keith also managed a draw against GM Evgeni Vasiukov the well-known Russian GM. Our sole point came from the fiercely contested first round match against the other English team."

The organizers and arbiters

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN You can use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.