World Team CC: Russia loses two in a row

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World Team Championship in Tsaghkadzor:
India leads, Russia is last

The World Team Championship started with a big surprise: after two rounds Russia is last. After losing in the first round against Ukraine, the Russians also lost against Cuba. Leinier Dominguez scored the decisive point by winning against Alexander Grischuk, showing that knight and queen often work better together than bishop and queen. All other games of the match were drawn.

Leinier Dominguez

Alexander Grischuk

The three draws in the match Cuba-Russia were typical and the drawing percentage in the second round was rather high. Only four games of 20 had a decisive result.

Ponomariov conceding defeat against Aronian

GM Boris Gelfand, Israel's board one (left), drew with Egyptian GM Amin Bassem

And Egypt's board two, Samy Shoker (2482), won a sharp tactical battle against Emil Sutovsky (2628)

USA versus India

Pavel Eljanov

Results of the second round

2.1	10	India		2 - 2	6	USA
1	GM	Harikrishna P.	2731	½ : ½	GM	Shankland Samuel L	2661
2	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	2634	½ : ½	GM	Onischuk Alexander	2665
3	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	2654	½ : ½	GM	Akobian Varuzhan	2622
4	GM	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	2630	½ : ½	GM	Naroditsky Daniel	2640

2.2	7	Hungary		2 - 2	5	China
1	GM	Leko Peter	2713	½ : ½	GM	Ding Liren	2751
2	GM	Erdos Viktor	2612	½ : ½	GM	Yu Yangyi	2724
3	GM	Rapport Richard	2710	½ : ½	GM	Bu Xiangzhi	2681
4	GM	Balogh Csaba	2651	½ : ½	GM	Wei Yi	2703

2.3	8	Russia		1½ - 2½	4	Cuba
1	GM	Grischuk Alexander	2794	0 : 1	GM	Dominguez Perez Leinier	2729
2	GM	Karjakin Sergey	2757	½ : ½	GM	Bruzon Batista Lazaro	2691
3	GM	Tomashevsky Evgeny	2745	½ : ½	GM	Quesada Perez Yuniesky	2629
4	GM	Vitiugov Nikita	2736	½ : ½	GM	Gonzalez Vidal Yuri	2557

2.4	9	Armenia		2½ - 1½	3	Ukraine
1	GM	Aronian Levon	2770	1 : 0	GM	Ponomariov Ruslan	2713
2	GM	Sargissian Gabriel	2674	½ : ½	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	2731
3	GM	Movsesian Sergei	2665	½ : ½	GM	Eljanov Pavel	2733
4	GM	Melkumyan Hrant	2651	½ : ½	GM	Moiseenko Alexander	2697

2.5	1	Egypt		2 - 2	2	Israel
1	GM	Amin Bassem	2634	½ : ½	GM	Gelfand Boris	2747
2	GM	Shoker Samy	2482	1 : 0	GM	Sutovsky Emil	2628
3	IM	Ezat Mohamed	2479	½ : ½	GM	Smirin Ilia	2652
4	GM	Adly Ahmed	2595	0 : 1	GM	Rodshtein Maxim	2667

Replay games of the second round

Standings

Rank	Team	Gam.	+	=	-	MP	Pts.
1	India	2	1	1	0	3	5
2	China	2	1	1	0	3	4½
3	Israel	2	1	1	0	3	4½
4	Cuba	2	1	1	0	3	4½
5	Hungary	2	0	2	0	2	4
6	Armenia	2	1	0	1	2	4
7	Ukraine	2	1	0	1	2	4
8	USA	2	0	1	1	1	3½
9	Egypt	2	0	1	1	1	3
10	Russia	2	0	0	2	0	3

The arbiters

Pictures: Official tournament site

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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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Johannes Fischer Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".