World Team 05: Ivanchuk's team in command

The World Chess Team Championship is currently being held in Antalya, Turkey. The tournament runs from November 26th to December 5th. The tournament is a round robin tournament between the best countries in the world who are sending their top participants. The event will have zero tolerance rules, no draw offers for the first 30 moves and will be played under the standard team tournament system with two points given to a match winner, one for a draw and zero the the loser of a match. Tiebreaks will be decided by board points. The time control is the FIDE 90 minutes for 40 moves and an additional 30 minutes at move 40 with thirty second increment throughout the game.

Round 5

World travellers: Ipatov has recently finished a tour through the Americas while
Tiviakov is impossible to pin down on a map at any given point

Another important day for the standings table as Ukraine continues to steam roll through the tournament. With a win by Kryvoruchko in a surprisingly unpleasant opposite colored bishop endgame against Esen, Ukraine was able to squeak by a win 2.5-1.5 which is enough to keep them very far ahead in the standings.

Ivanchuk's cap today was a little ironic as he tried really hard to beat his Turkish
opponent. However Ipatov solidly held him to a draw in a Schlecter set up.

The Netherlands did what they had to do and beat Egypt. Giri won without problems after his opponent went a little too trigger happy with his sacrifices and in no way did his three pawns compensate for a full rook. On hte other hand Sokolov showed great technique and dispatched Amin Bassem while the European team's black pieces drew.

Amin Bassem's 2.0/5 isn't a terrible result, but it isn't helping Egypt's situation

Russia scored a very important victory by absolutely squashing Germany. Karjakin simply took all of Khenkin's sacrifices and he was winning while Grischuk and Vitiugov managed to outplay their opponents with black to give the Russian team a 3.5-0.5 no questions asked demolition.

Nepomniachtchi (left) was the only draw today of the Russian team. Here with
coach Potkin (center) and Vitiugov (right).

Armenia suffered a little setback today as they drew Azerbaijan. This would normally not be such a bad thing but without Mamedyarov or Radjabov it would seem as if Armenia were the clear favorites to take the match. A misstep by Sargissian on the last board against Durarbayli meant it was up to Akopian to save Armenia by beating Nidjat Mamedov, who had until that point had a fantastic event. Probably the big surprise of this match was that Aronian was held to a draw by Mamedov who is over 150 rating points lower and was playing with black.

Armenia is currently tied with China and The Netherlands with six points

Another important match was the China vs. USA duel. Interestingly enough, last year in the Olympiad America took out Russia 2.5-1.5, but fell in the next round to China by the same score. In that ocassion Ding Liren squeezed out a win in a drawn rook endgame against Onischuk. This time it seems history repeats itself with the scores but the match mechanics were quite different.

USA's coach, Wesley So, players Ray Robson, Alexander Onischuk, Hikaru Nakamura
and team captain John Donaldson. Donaldson makes sure everything is smooth for
the players and he does a great job of it.

Today Hikaru Nakamura capitalized on Li Chao's weakness as a board one and took a convincing point with an anti-Gruenfeld that is gaining popularity. However Bu Xiangzhi keeps showing that he is at the top of his game and currently has a 2893 performance rating after today's victory against Ray Robson. A solid draw on board three between Onischuk and Wang Yue meant that everything rested in the Ding Liren vs. Kamsky game and it seems that Ding has become the American slayer. He squeezed Kamsky in the American's pet line and gave the Chinese a key victory.

Today it was deja vu, not j'adoube

Tomorrow will be a free day in Turkey as the players prepare themselves for an exciting round six. Ukraine will try to keep their strong lead by beating the Netherlands while Russia will have a chance to keep up the pursuit as they are currently in second place and playing the host country.

Results

Standings

Teams receive two points for a match win, one for a draw and zero for a loss

Replay today's games

Photos by Fatma Koc Ozturk

Links Official tournament site PGN of all games 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.