World Senior Team Championships: Iceland and Strasbourg lead

Six of the nine rounds of the Senior World Team Championships in Krakow have now been played, and the teams leading the 50+ and the 65+ tournaments are not necessarily the ones you would expect.

In the 50+ tournament, the Grandmaster teams USA, England 1, Iceland and Italy are the biggest favourites and these four teams lead after six rounds, but not in the order of the seeding list.

In fact, only Iceland, with grandmasters Helgi Olafsson, Johann Hjartarson, Margeir Petursson, Jon Arnarson and Throstur Thorhallson, are still undefeated and lead the field with five wins and one draw.

The Icelanders started with victories over the Hungarian women's team and the German team from the Lübecker SV. Lübeck's top board Ullrich Krause, the former President of the German Chess Federation, was able to draw against Olafsson, but the other three boards all lost.

In round three, the Icelanders faced their first somewhat tougher opponent, Israel Rishon Lezion, but again came away with a smooth 3:1 victory. The first English team then proved to be the first insurmountable hurdle in round four.

Michael Adams, right

At board one, however, Johann Hjartarson suffered a rather drastic defeat against Michael Adams.

With his third win in the third game, Adams was able to enjoy an Elo-perfomance of over 3000. However, Throstur Thorhallson levelled the score by winning against Keith Arkell. In round five, Iceland won the important battle against Italy 2.5:1.5 and in round six they beat Canada, who had celebrated four victories up to that point and had only lost to the US team.

With an average rating of 2480, the USA are the top favourites for the title ahead of England 1. After beating Brazil in the opening round, the US team had a somewhat laboured 2.5:1.5 win against Canada - only Ehlvest was able to win his game - and an equally narrow victory against USA 2. In round four, the "US boys" then suffered a defeat against Italy - Shabalov lost to Godena - and dropped to ninth place in the table. In round five, however, an important 2.5:1.5 victory against England 1 followed, with Melikset Khachiyan winning the match against Glenn Flear. On Sunday, England 2 were defeated with the same result. 

Italy had two wins, but their success against England in the third round was a narrow 2.5-1.5, with Natasha Regan scoring against Lexy Ortega.

The Italians followed that up with a win over the USA before losing to Iceland. In round six they beat Rishon Lezion. Sitting in second place at the moment, Italy are undoubtedly playing for a medal.

65+

The Strasbourg chess club team are somewhat surprisingly leading the senior tournament. The team has won five of the six rounds and drawn only once, in round five against top favourites England 1. The Roos brothers play on three boards for Strasbourg. With 6 points from 6 games, Louis Roos has been particularly impressive. In the match against England 1, John Nunn scored for England against Mershad Sharif. But Louis Roos levelled the score at 2-2 with a win against Paul Littlewood.

With 4.5 out of 6, John Nunn and Anthony Kosten are the most successful players in the England team. In round six, England dropped another team point against Israel 1. However, Nunn showed that he is still a great expert of the Najdorf when he beat Yehuda Gruenfeld on board one.

Najdorf: A dynamic grandmaster repertoire against 1.e4 Vol.1 & 2

In the first part of the video series, we will look at White’s four main moves: 6. Bg5, 6. Be3, 6. Be2 and 6. Bc4.

Standings 50+

Games

Standings 65+

Games

Links

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