V. Mik?nas 1980

Mio nonno, che aveva combattuto nella prima guerra mondiale, che casualmente ne sopravvisse e visse abbastanza a lungo anche dopo la seconda, a volte confondeva i paesi baltici con i paesi balcanici ed anch’io, bambino, avevo di conseguenza qualche idea poco chiara.

I tre paesi baltici per antonomasia, Estonia, Lettonia e Lituania, hanno fatto parte dell’Impero Russo  fino al 1917, divennero Stati indipendenti dopo la guerra del 1915-18, subirono poi l’occupazione nazista, entrarono a far parte (1940) dell’Unione Sovietica e di nuovo poterono proclamare la loro indipendenza nel 1991 a seguito del disfacimento dell’ex URSS.

Aggiungo che teoricamente dovremmo considerare Stati baltici anche Svezia, Finlandia e Polonia, in quanto sul Mar Baltico s’affacciano, e così comprenderete come mio nonno,  modesto operaio senza internet e con pochi libri, potesse giustamente venire a confondersi in mezzo a tante vicende e valutazioni storico-politico-geografiche.

Estonia, Lettonia e Lituania sono abitate complessivamente, oggi, da poco più di 8 milioni di persone (meno della sola Lombardia), quasi 2 milioni delle quali concentrate nelle tre deliziose capitali, Tallinn, Riga e Vilnius. Eppure queste affascinanti terre di frontiera hanno saputo dare i natali ad alcuni tra i più  grandi campioni di scacchi: Aaron Nimzowitsch (Riga 1886), Paul Keres (Narva 1916) e Mikhail Tal (Riga 1936). Non dimentichiamo che è di Riga (1972) anche l’attuale n. 10 delle classifiche mondiali, Alexei Shirov, ora cittadino spagnolo, mentre è di Tallinn (1962) Jaan Ehlvest, che sul finire degli anni 90 fu tra i primi dieci al mondo e che da tempo  vive negli Stati Uniti.

Nelle edizioni delle Olimpiadi scacchistiche che hanno preceduto il 2° conflitto mondiale occorre sottolineare il 6° posto della Lettonia nel 1931 e 1935, l’8° e poi il fantastico 3° dell’Estonia (guidata da un grande Keres) rispettivamente nel 1937 e 1939, il 7° della Lituania nel 1933 e 1937 ottenuto con la medesima equipe, composta da Mikenas, Vaitonis, Vistaneckis, Luckis e Abramavicius.

In tutte e tre le repubbliche l’impulso scacchistico si è tuttavia, ai giorni nostri, andato affievolendo,  probabilmente anche a seguito delle attenzioni che negli ultimi decenni hanno dirottato massicciamente i giovani verso altri sport. In Lituania, ad esempio, popolarissimo è da tempo il basket (ben famosi Arvydas Sabonis e Sarunas Marciulionis), ma, più o meno di recente, anche in altre discipline sono emersi dei campioni, come il discobolo Virgilijus Alekna, due volte medaglia d’oro olimpica, o  come le straordinarie cicliste Edita Pucinskaite e Diana Ziliute.

Non è pertanto un caso che nelle classifiche Elo resistano in alto alcuni giocatori piuttosto anziani, e questo in sé non può certo essere considerato un buon segnale per il movimento.

Ad esempio, in Lituania è ancora n. 1 Eduardas Rozentalis (classe 1963, non più un ragazzino) e all’ottavo posto c’è il sessantaquattrenne Algimantas Butnorius, che nel 2007 è stato campione mondiale senior (ma al 3° c’è una donna, la giovane e validissima Viktorija Cmilyte, ex moglie di Shirov).

Così, nella piccola Lettonia è tuttora 3° uno dei mostri sacri della teoria, il molto noto Evgeny Sveshnikov, 60 anni, mentre è quasi incredibile l’8° posto di Janis Klovans, che era amico e coetaneo di Tal e che di primavere ne conta ben 75.

Di conseguenza anche i piazzamenti nelle Olimpiadi successive al 1991 non sono paragonabili a quelli del passato (ma anche per il gran numero di nazioni oggi partecipanti). Dopo lo splendido 5° posto della Lettonia a Manila 1992 (con Shirov, Kengis, Shabalov, Bagirov, Lanka e Klovans) non c’è stato nulla di meglio del 14° della stessa Lettonia a Elista 1998 e del 21° della Lituania a Bled 2002.

Adesso, però, vorrei intrattenervi su un solo nome, quello di un giocatore dall’imprevedibile e pungente stile garibaldino, Vladas Mikenas, del quale è ricorso quest’anno il centenario della nascita (Tallinn 17 aprile 1910) e che è stato uno dei più famosi sportivi lituani di sempre.

Mikenas dunque proviene dall’Estonia. Nel 1920 perse tragicamente il padre. Nel 1921 imparò a giocare a scacchi, ma in seguito praticò anche tennis tavolo, calcio, atletica e lotta. Nel 1931 vinse, in Finlandia, il suo primo torneo e subito dopo anche un piccolo torneo internazionale a Tallinn.

Nello stesso anno si trasferì in Lituania, già terra dei suoi antenati. Qui pose fine al regno di Alexsander Macht, che durava dal 1923, uno scacchista di seconda fascia che sparì dalla scena proprio con l’arrivo di Mikenas. Si noti che in Lituania il nostro gioco venne conosciuto soltanto a partire dal XVII° secolo ed ebbe diffusione solo sul finire del XIX°: nel 1887 veniva fondato il primo club di scacchi e nel 1912 fu organizzato a Vilnius il primo torneo internazionale (lo vinse Akiba Rubinstein).

Mikenas nel 1931

Mikenas giocò per la Lituania, sempre in prima scacchiera, nelle Olimpiadi di Praga (1931, con un promettente score di 10 su 18), Folkestone (1933), Varsavia (1935),  Stoccolma (1937, con lo score di 7 vinte, 8 patte e 3 perse)  e Buenos Aires (1939,  con lo score di 10 vinte, 4 patte  5 perse).

Nel 1932 uscì un suo manuale di scacchi (“Sachmatu vadovélis”), che fu anche il primo libro di scacchi pubblicato in lingua lituana.

Disputò tre match con il forte conterraneo Povilas Vaitonis (che poi sarebbe emigrato in Canada), vincendo nel 1934 (6 a 2), nel 1937 (5,5 a 4,5) e nel 1938 (9 a 3).

Nel 1936 sposò Alexandra Cepurnaite.  Nel 1939 nasceva suo figlio, Algirdas.

Il 3 agosto del 1940 la Lituania fu annessa all’Unione Sovietica ed in un paio di occasioni Mikenas ebbe l’opportunità di entrare a far parte dello squadrone sovietico.

Nel frattempo aveva partecipato a numerosi tornei, facendosi ben temere ma senza tuttavia mai riuscire ad eccellere: fu 10° a Kemeri nel 1937, 6° ad Hastings nel 1938 (primo Reshevsky),  4° a Kemeri nel 1939 (dietro Flohr, Stahlberg e Szabo) e, sempre nel 1939, 3° a Rosario dietro Petrov ed Eliskases.

La qualità del suo gioco era alta solo a tratti, mentre il suo stile audace ed originale, come il suo temperamento aperto e gioviale e i suoi numerosi interessi non si conciliavano troppo con certe caratteristiche da “primato assoluto”. Quelle caratteristiche che, invece, in Alekhine ben colse

Ruben Fine allorché così scriveva: “Quando conobbi Alekhine, a Pasadena nel 1932, cominciai a capire il segreto del suo genio. Stava spiegando la partita disputata con Euwe alcuni mesi prima a Berna, e nei suoi occhi e nel suo sguardo c’era una strana intensità: per quell’uomo gli scacchi erano il respiro della vita ..…”.

L’approccio di Mikenas al nostro gioco era troppo diverso da quello di Alekhine.

Salomon Flohr di lui disse : “Vladas in realtà non sembra neppure a volte interessato ai risultati ed ai titoli. Il suo stile gli impedisce di essere pratico, il suo elemento è l’attacco. Penso che il miglior appagamento creativo Vladas lo ottenga quando riesce a far cadere in trappole astute gli avversari tramite nascosti o imprevisti tatticismi. Anch’io una volta sono stato la sua vittima”.

Il fatto cui Flohr si riferisce è accaduto durante l’Olimpiade di Folkestone del 1933, partita Mikenas-Flohr:

Mikenas-Flohr, Ol. Folkestone 1933, posizione dopo 18.Df3-h3+

Mikenas, nella posizione del diagramma, aveva appena mosso 18.Df3-h3+ e Flohr, invece di replicare con … Td7, giocò immediatamente la più spontanea …Dd7, cui seguì 19.C:a7+, A:a7 20.Da3, che costrinse all’abbandono il campione ceco. Infatti a 20….b6 sarebbe seguìto 21.T:b6,Ce4 (se …A:b6 22.Da8 matto) 22.Da6+ e poi matto.

A proposito di Alekhine, rimase celebre un episodio verificatosi dopo il 23° tratto del Nero della partita Alekhine-Mikenas, quarto turno di Kemeri 1937:

Alekhine-Mikenas, Kemeri 1937

In questa posizione Mikenas (nero) giocò 23….A:e4  e qui Alekhine  (a partita in corso!)  non seppe trattenersi dall’esclamare arditamente (e maleducatamente): “Che errore, giovane! Se lei avesse giocato Tc2 avrei subito abbandonato”. Vladas non si scompose, guardò per qualche secondo la scacchiera e replicò “Sì, in effetti proprio un errore. Vuol dire che cercherò di porvi riparo vincendo questa partita per la seconda volta”. E seppe mantenere la promessa, piegando Alekhine  dopo altre 40 mosse.

Un'immagine di quella celebre partita

Proprio durante il torneo di Kemeri 1937 nacque il diminutivo con il quale Vladas Mikenas venne di lì in poi chiamato in patria e persino in famiglia: “Miki”, che non rappresenta né un capitàno del Tennessee né una semplice contrazione del suo cognome. La spiegazione è un’altra. Questa.

La maggioranza dei giocatori partecipanti al torneo era solita, alla sera, recarsi al Caffè “L’Allegra Zanzara”. Ebbene, visto che anche Mikenas, molto in forma in quel periodo, “pungeva allegramente” con il suo gioco, qualcuno dei Grandi Maestri propose di chiamarlo “Miki” in quanto in tedesco zanzara si dice appunto  “mùche”.

Mikenas nel 1940

E’ del 1941 la sua partita più famosa, quella che alcuni commentatori hanno osato, legittimamente, chiamare “L’immortale di Mikenas”. Impossibile non riproporvela qui, pur se conosciutissima :

Mikenas – Lebedev

1.d4,Cf6 2.c4,e6 3.Cc3,d5 4.Ag5,Ae7 5.e3,h6 6.Ah4,0-0 7.Tc1,c6 8.Ad3,Cbd7 9.Cf3,d:c4 10.A:c4,Cd5 11.Ag3,C:c3 12.b:c3,c5 13.0-0,a6 14.Ad3,Cf6 15.Ce5,Ad6 16.Ah4,Ae7 17.Ab1,De8 18.d:c5,g5 19.Ag3,A:c5 20.f4!,A:e3+ 21.Rh1,A:c1 22.f:g5!,A:g5 23.T:f6!,Rg7 24.Dd3,h5 25.h4,R:f6 26.Cg4!,h:g4 27.Ae5+!,R:e5 28.Dd4 matto 1-0

Vladas prese parte per 10 volte al campionato sovietico, ottenendo il miglior risultato, 5°, nel 1944. Fu primo al campionato lituano nel 1947, 1948, l961, 1964, 1965 e 1968.

Mancano, come vedete, gli anni 50, quando il campionato lituano fu appannaggio quasi esclusivo (1950, 51, 52, 53, 55, 57, 58, 59 e 1960) di Ratmir Kholmov.

Nel 1950 Mikenas divenne Maestro Internazionale (l’anno, appunto, in cui fu istituito il titolo) e sempre nel 1950 superò a Vilnius, in un quadrangolare, Kholmov, Vistaneckis e Ragozin.

Giunse poi 3° a Parnu nel 1955 (dove vinse Keres), ottimo 2° (il suo miglior torneo, con p. 11 su 13!) dietro Spassky e davanti a Tolusch e Tal a Riga nel 1959, 4° a Leningrado nel 1960 (vittoria a Taimanov). Vinse il campionato baltico nel 1965. Fu primo a Lublino nel 1971, già sessantunenne, ma l’anno successivo vi giunse solo 13° (sconfiggendo però Alburt). Nel 1976 tornava sulla breccia, col 7° posto nel campionato lituano (vinto da Butnorius). L’ultimo suo importante torneo internazionale fu quello di Vilnius 1978, dove ottenne appena 5,5 punti, pattando comunque con gente del calibro di Gulko, Dorfman, Tigran Petrosjan, Csom e Reshevsky.

(segue)

The gap between Magnus Carlsen (2826) and Veselin Topalov (2803) has increased to 23 points on the July 1 FIDE rating list. The Norwegian won 13 points whereas the Bulgarian dropped 9. Third is World Champion Viswanathan Anand, now with 2800 points exactly. Wang Yue dropped from 8th to 28th.

FIDE has published its July 1st rating list and since all the big events were entered in time, there’s no difference between the official top 10 and the “live” top 10 of Hans Arild Runde (which you can also find in the far right column on this website). In fact there aren’t very big changes in the top 10 compared to the previous list either.

Carlsen’s fine victory in Romania last week got him another 13 rating points and because Topalov lost 9 points in his match with Anand, the gap between the world’s number one and two is now 23 points. Those 9 points went to Anand, who thereby surpassed Kramnik to regain the 3rd spot, at a nice 2800 precisely.

At the Kings’ Tournament Gelfand lost twice to Radjabov; the two switched places on the rankings between spots 10 and 13. Malakhov and Navara are in the top 20 on this list – the latter thanks to a stunning 8.5/9 at the Czech Championship.

Vugar Gashimov, who was still 7th in the world on the January 2010 list, dropped further to a 26th spot. The biggest skydive was performed by Wang Yue, who lost 36 points and went down from 8th to 28th. Winning 16 points, Wang Hao surpassed him to become China’s number one at 2724.

After entering the top 100 on the May list, Anish Giri won 30 more points to climb to a 62nd place at 2672, but the highest rated Dutch player is Loek van Wely with five points more. Ivan Cheparinov is back in the top 100 with 2661.

The women’s list is still very stable, with very few changes in the top 10. Judit Polgar again didn’t play, but Humpy Koneru did. The Indian lost 22 points at the 3rd FIDE Grand Prix in Nalchik and so the gap increased from 60 to 82 points. Below you’ll find the new top 100, the top 100 women, the top 20 juniors and the top 20 girls. We give the first two lists including the changes with the previous lists.

FIDE JULY 2010 RATING LIST: TOP 100 PLAYERS
Legend:
black color – player remained on the same position
green color – player moved up in the list
red color – player moved down in the list
blue color – player is new to the current Top list
Old represents player’s position in the previous period list

Rank		Old	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games
	1	1	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2826 (+13)	10 (+10)
	2	2	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2803 (-9)	12 (+2)
	3	4	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2800 (+11)	13 (+11)
	4	3	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2790 (0)	0 (0)
	5	5	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2783 (0)	0 (-10)
	6	6	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2761 (-2)	13 (+9)
	7	7	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2760 (0)	0 (-18)
	8	9	Eljanov, Pavel	g	UKR	2755 (+4)	16 (-4)
	9	10	Shirov, Alexei	g	ESP	2749 (+7)	7 (-3)
	10	13	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2748 (+8)	23 (+23)
	11	14	Karjakin, Sergey	g	RUS	2747 (+8)	11 (+4)
	12	12	Ivanchuk, Vassily	g	UKR	2739 (-2)	25 (+15)
	13	11	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2739 (-2)	23 (+7)
	14	18	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2734 (+1)	23 (+16)
	15	15	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2734 (-1)	18 (+3)
	16	16	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2734 (-1)	13 (+13)
	17	22	Malakhov, Vladimir	g	RUS	2732 (+10)	16 (+4)
	18	24	Navara, David	g	CZE	2731 (+13)	9 (-15)
	19	19	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2729 (-4)	10 (+6)
	20	21	Jakovenko, Dmitry	g	RUS	2726 (+1)	27 (+17)
	21	23	Wang, Hao	g	CHN	2724 (+2)	36 (+26)
	22	30	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	g	FRA	2723 (+13)	12 (-3)
	23	25	Movsesian, Sergei	g	SVK	2723 (+6)	2 (-33)
	24	32	Vitiugov, Nikita	g	RUS	2722 (+15)	18 (0)
	25	29	Bacrot, Etienne	g	FRA	2720 (+10)	11 (-14)
	26	17	Gashimov, Vugar	g	AZE	2719 (-15)	17 (+3)
	27	20	Almasi, Zoltan	g	HUN	2717 (-8)	2 (-9)
	28	8	Wang, Yue	g	CHN	2716 (-36)	29 (+22)
	29	28	Dominguez Perez, Leinier	g	CUB	2716 (+3)	10 (+10)
	30	27	Morozevich, Alexander	g	RUS	2715 (0)	0 (0)
	31	36	Kamsky, Gata	g	USA	2713 (+11)	10 (+1)
	32	26	Jobava, Baadur	g	GEO	2710 (-5)	17 (+6)
	33	31	Tomashevsky, Evgeny	g	RUS	2708 (0)	0 (-18)
	34	42	Nepomniachtchi, Ian	g	RUS	2706 (+11)	20 (0)
	35	41	Adams, Michael	g	ENG	2706 (+9)	15 (-4)
	36	38	Onischuk, Alexander	g	USA	2701 (+2)	21 (+12)
	37	40	Nielsen, Peter Heine	g	DEN	2700 (+2)	2 (-7)
	38	39	Kasimdzhanov, Rustam	g	UZB	2699 (0)	0 (-3)
	39	57	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2697 (+22)	21 (0)
	40	45	Fressinet, Laurent	g	FRA	2697 (+8)	8 (-20)
	41	35	Vallejo Pons, Francisco	g	ESP	2697 (-6)	4 (-26)
	42	64	Bologan, Viktor	g	MDA	2695 (+27)	28 (+7)
	43	37	Alekseev, Evgeny	g	RUS	2691 (-9)	23 (+3)
	44	43	Akopian, Vladimir	g	ARM	2691 (-3)	13 (+2)
	45	54	Timofeev, Artyom	g	RUS	2690 (+13)	18 (0)
	46	48	Short, Nigel D	g	ENG	2690 (+5)	14 (+5)
	47	53	Efimenko, Zahar	g	UKR	2689 (+12)	10 (-19)
	48	34	Rublevsky, Sergei	g	RUS	2688 (-16)	13 (+4)
	49	49	Miroshnichenko, Evgenij	g	UKR	2686 (+2)	10 (+6)
	50	33	Motylev, Alexander	g	RUS	2685 (-19)	14 (-7)
	51	47	Naiditsch, Arkadij	g	GER	2684 (-2)	18 (-16)
	52	59	Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter	g	ROU	2683 (+11)	21 (+2)
	53	58	Riazantsev, Alexander	g	RUS	2682 (+8)	15 (-5)
	54	50	Polgar, Judit	g	HUN	2682 (0)	0 (0)
	55	46	Le, Quang Liem	g	VIE	2681 (-6)	9 (-4)
	56	44	Sasikiran, Krishnan	g	IND	2679 (-11)	9 (+3)
	57	84	Van Wely, Loek	g	NED	2677 (+24)	27 (+14)
	58	51	Bu, Xiangzhi	g	CHN	2676 (-5)	26 (+23)
	59	74	Georgiev, Kiril	g	BUL	2675 (+13)	13 (-11)
	60	67	So, Wesley	g	PHI	2674 (+9)	18 (+18)
	61	55	Sargissian, Gabriel	g	ARM	2673 (-4)	16 (+5)
	62	97	Giri, Anish	g	NED	2672 (+30)	25 (+1)
	63	70	Najer, Evgeniy	g	RUS	2672 (+9)	12 (-16)
	64	61	Inarkiev, Ernesto	g	RUS	2671 (+2)	13 (-5)
	65	56	Berkes, Ferenc	g	HUN	2670 (-6)	8 (-11)
	66	77	Smeets, Jan	g	NED	2669 (+10)	9 (+3)
	67	86	Zhou, Jianchao	g	CHN	2668 (+16)	35 (+31)
	68	65	Grachev, Boris	g	RUS	2668 (+1)	13 (-4)
	69	78	Khismatullin, Denis	g	RUS	2667 (+10)	9 (-9)
	70	62	Moiseenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2667 (-2)	7 (-10)
	71	90	Fedorchuk, Sergey A.	g	UKR	2665 (+19)	27 (+14)
	72	75	Sutovsky, Emil	g	ISR	2665 (+4)	20 (+9)
	73	71	Areshchenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2664 (+1)	1 (-21)
	74	72	Bareev, Evgeny	g	RUS	2663 (0)	0 (-11)
	75	73	Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	g	POL	2663 (0)	0 (-5)
	76	52	Kurnosov, Igor	g	RUS	2662 (-18)	9 (-19)
	77	101	Cheparinov, Ivan	g	BUL	2661 (+21)	7 (-4)
	78	69	Volokitin, Andrei	g	UKR	2661 (-3)	4 (-21)
	79	81	Dreev, Alexey	g	RUS	2660 (+5)	33 (+12)
	80	85	Mamedov, Rauf	g	AZE	2660 (+7)	10 (-1)
	81	87	Korobov, Anton	g	UKR	2657 (+8)	6 (-7)
	82	89	Zhigalko, Sergei	g	BLR	2656 (+9)	8 (-12)
	83	79	Zvjaginsev, Vadim	g	RUS	2656 (0)	0 (-18)
	84	60	Ganguly, Surya Shekhar	g	IND	2655 (-17)	9 (+9)
	85	63	Bruzon Batista, Lazaro	g	CUB	2653 (-15)	10 (-17)
	86	95	Andreikin, Dmitry	g	RUS	2650 (+7)	10 (+5)
	87	-	Gharamian, Tigran	g	FRA	2650 (+)	9 (+)
	88	-	Meier, Georg	g	GER	2648 (+)	13 (+)
	89	88	Kobalia, Mikhail	g	RUS	2648 (0)	0 (-20)
	90	76	Harikrishna, P.	g	IND	2646 (-14)	18 (+18)
	91	-	Smirin, Ilia	g	ISR	2646 (+)	16 (+)
	92	92	Socko, Bartosz	g	POL	2646 (+2)	9 (-9)
	93	66	Ni, Hua	g	CHN	2645 (-22)	35 (+28)
	94	82	Fridman, Daniel	g	GER	2645 (-9)	23 (-13)
	95	68	Roiz, Michael	g	ISR	2645 (-19)	11 (-16)
	96	94	Milov, Vadim	g	SUI	2644 (0)	0 (0)
	97	100	Gustafsson, Jan	g	GER	2643 (+3)	11 (-13)
	98	-	Aleksandrov, Aleksej	g	BLR	2642 (+)	31 (+)
	99	83	Sokolov, Ivan	g	BIH	2641 (-13)	25 (0)
	100	-	Macieja, Bartlomiej	g	POL	2639 (+)	16 (+)

FIDE JULY 2010 RATING LIST: TOP 100 WOMEN

Rank		Old	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games
	1	1	Polgar, Judit	g	HUN	2682 (0)	0 (0)
	2	2	Koneru, Humpy	g	IND	2600 (-22)	11 (+11)
	3	3	Hou, Yifan	g	CHN	2577 (-12)	36 (+24)
	4	7	Kosintseva, Tatiana	g	RUS	2562 (+28)	11 (0)
	5	4	Stefanova, Antoaneta	g	BUL	2560 (0)	0 (-16)
	6	5	Kosintseva, Nadezhda	m	RUS	2551 (-2)	10 (-1)
	7	9	Lahno, Kateryna	g	UKR	2535 (+8)	4 (+1)
	8	8	Muzychuk, Anna	m	SLO	2527 (-2)	21 (-1)
	9	12	Cmilyte, Viktorija	m	LTU	2527 (+13)	7 (-17)
	10	10	Sebag, Marie	g	FRA	2519 (-5)	7 (-7)
	11	11	Kosteniuk, Alexandra	g	RUS	2519 (0)	0 (-6)
	12	6	Cramling, Pia	g	SWE	2517 (-19)	25 (+4)
	13	13	Chiburdanidze, Maia	g	GEO	2514 (0)	0 (0)
	14	18	Harika, Dronavalli	m	IND	2504 (+13)	29 (+20)
	15	14	Pogonina, Natalija	wg	RUS	2501 (0)	0 (-6)
	16	16	Zhukova, Natalia	g	UKR	2499 (0)	0 (-17)
	17	25	Dzagnidze, Nana	g	GEO	2498 (+20)	23 (+12)
	18	15	Ju, Wenjun	wg	CHN	2496 (-4)	26 (+26)
	19	22	Xu, Yuhua	g	CHN	2488 (+4)	2 (0)
	20	20	Paehtz, Elisabeth	m	GER	2485 (0)	0 (-30)
	21	19	Galliamova, Alisa	m	RUS	2482 (-5)	9 (+9)
	22	28	Ruan, Lufei	wg	CHN	2480 (+6)	6 (+5)
	23	21	Socko, Monika	g	POL	2477 (-8)	4 (-17)
	24	41	Krush, Irina	m	USA	2476 (+21)	24 (+1)
	25	27	Zhu, Chen	g	QAT	2476 (0)	12 (+12)
	26	23	Hoang Thanh Trang	g	HUN	2474 (-8)	11 (0)
	27	31	Dembo, Yelena	m	GRE	2470 (0)	0 (-11)
	28	30	Zatonskih, Anna	m	USA	2470 (0)	0 (-27)
	29	24	Javakhishvili, Lela	m	GEO	2469 (-13)	9 (-2)
	30	26	Mkrtchian, Lilit	m	ARM	2468 (-9)	11 (0)
	31	32	Ushenina, Anna	m	UKR	2468 (0)	0 (-15)
	32	34	Vijayalakshmi, Subbaraman	m	IND	2466 (0)	0 (0)
	33	35	Gaponenko, Inna	m	UKR	2465 (0)	0 (-20)
	34	17	Zhao, Xue	g	CHN	2462 (-31)	26 (+18)
	35	39	Gunina, Valentina	wg	RUS	2462 (+5)	9 (-6)
	36	37	Tan, Zhongyi	wg	CHN	2461 (-3)	26 (+24)
	37	36	Skripchenko, Almira	m	FRA	2458 (-6)	8 (-9)
	38	45	Hunt, Harriet V	m	ENG	2454 (+2)	10 (+10)
	39	43	Muzychuk, Mariya	m	UKR	2452 (0)	0 (-32)
	40	46	Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan	g	SCO	2451 (+2)	9 (-7)
	41	40	Polgar, Sofia	m	HUN	2450 (-7)	5 (+5)
	42	51	Huang, Qian	wg	CHN	2447 (+10)	17 (+14)
	43	48	Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina	m	RUS	2447 (0)	0 (-16)
	44	38	Rajlich, Iweta	m	POL	2446 (-14)	6 (-16)
	45	49	Atalik, Ekaterina	m	TUR	2444 (0)	0 (-5)
	46	47	Khurtsidze, Nino	m	GEO	2443 (-5)	18 (+7)
	47	33	Melia, Salome	m	GEO	2442 (-24)	17 (-3)
	48	50	Moser, Eva	m	AUT	2440 (0)	0 (-32)
	49	44	Shen, Yang	wg	CHN	2435 (-17)	13 (+10)
	50	52	Repkova, Eva	m	SVK	2434 (0)	0 (-29)
	51	56	Houska, Jovanka	m	ENG	2433 (+16)	12 (-5)
	52	29	Danielian, Elina	m	ARM	2431 (-42)	11 (-1)
	53	62	Khotenashvili, Bela	m	GEO	2423 (+13)	18 (-2)
	54	65	Matnadze, Ana	m	GEO	2422 (+13)	9 (-1)
	55	59	Munguntuul, Batkhuyag	m	MGL	2421 (+8)	11 (-2)
	56	57	Peptan, Corina-Isabela
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/carlsen-23-points-ahead-of-topalov/
Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:50:48 +0000
Eljanov is Ukraine’s number one
Magnus Carlsen (2813) tops the world rankings by one point. On the May 1 FIDE rating list Veselin Topalov has won seven rating points to reach 2812. Vassily Ivanchuk is not the highest rated Ukrainian anymore; Pavel Eljanov confirmed his steady progress and surpassed him to enter the world’s top 10. And Alexei Shirov is back there too. FIDE published its May 1st rating list and this time there’s not a big difference between the official top 10 and the “live” top 10 of Hans Arild Runde (which you can also find in the far right column on this website). Only Anand’s and Topalov’s ratings are different because of the current World Championship match: virtually speaking Topalov has dropped back to 2806 and Anand is just 3.6 points away from the 2800 barrier. The biggest news this time is that Vassily Ivanchuk isn’t Ukraine’s number one player anymore, for the first time in years. Winning another 15 points in 20 games, on the May 2010 list Pavel Eljanov has reached a 9th spot, while Ivanchuk lost seven points and dropped slightly from 11 to 12. With solid results in not so many games Wang Yue climbed from 10 to 8, and the 10th place is now occupied by Alexei Shirov. Boris Gelfand is out of the top 10 again but only lost 9 rating points. Sergey Karjakin might see the first results of his switch of federations and trainers: he climbed from 21 to 14. Alexander Morozevich didn’t play this period but still dropped three places, to 27 now. Anand’s seconds Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Peter Heine Nielsen can be found next to each other on the list: numbers 39 and 40. One of the biggest climbers was Ian Nepomniachtchi, who won no less than 39 points and went up from 78 to 42. Reaching 97, Anish Giri is a top 100 player for the first time. The women’s list has been stable for a long time now, with very few changes in the top 10. Both Judit Polgar and Humpy Koneru didn’t play, so the gap is still 60 points. Below you’ll find the new top 100, the top 100 women, the top 20 juniors and the top 20 girls. We give the first two lists including the changes with the previous lists. All data courtesy of FIDE. FIDE MAY 2010 RATING LIST: TOP 100 PLAYERS Legend: black color – player remained on the same position green color – player moved up in the list red color – player moved down in the list blue color – player is new to the current Top list Old represents player’s position in the previous period list Rank   Old    Name Title Country Rating Games  1  1  Carlsen, Magnus  g  NOR  2813 (0)  0 (-13)  2  2  Topalov, Veselin  g  BUL  2812 (+7)  10 (+10)  3  3  Kramnik, Vladimir  g  RUS  2790 (0)  0 (-13)  4  4  Anand, Viswanathan  g  IND  2789 (+2)  2 (-11)  5  5  Aronian, Levon  g  ARM  2783 (+1)  10 (+1)  6  6  Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar  g  AZE  2763 (+3)  4 (-5)  7  7  Grischuk, Alexander  g  RUS  2760 (+4)  18 (+2)  8  10  Wang, Yue  g  CHN  2752 (+3)  7 (+7)  9  16  Eljanov, Pavel  g  UKR  2751 (+15)  20 (+20)  10  14  Shirov, Alexei  g  ESP  2742 (+5)  10 (-3)  11  9  Gelfand, Boris  g  ISR  2741 (-9)  16 (+9)  12  11  Ivanchuk, Vassily  g  UKR  2741 (-7)  10 (-3)  13  13  Radjabov, Teimour  g  AZE  2740 (0)  0 (-7)  14  21  Karjakin, Sergey  g  RUS  2739 (+14)  7 (-6)  15  8  Svidler, Peter  g  RUS  2735 (-15)  15 (+6)  16  18  Leko, Peter  g  HUN  2735 (0)  0 (-13)  17  12  Gashimov, Vugar  g  AZE  2734 (-6)  14 (+7)  18  15  Ponomariov, Ruslan  g  UKR  2733 (-4)  7 (+7)  19  17  Nakamura, Hikaru  g  USA  2733 (-2)  4 (-17)  20  23  Almasi, Zoltan  g  HUN  2725 (+5)  11 (+2)  21  20  Jakovenko, Dmitry  g  RUS  2725 (0)  10 (-4)  22  22  Malakhov, Vladimir  g  RUS  2722 (+1)  12 (+5)  23  25  Wang, Hao  g  CHN  2722 (+7)  10 (+10)  24  31  Navara, David  g  CZE  2718 (+10)  24 (+24)  25  29  Movsesian, Sergei  g  SVK  2717 (+8)  35 (+25)  26  40  Jobava, Baadur  g  GEO  2715 (+20)  11 (+2)  27  24  Morozevich, Alexander  g  RUS  2715 (0)  0 (-6)  28  27  Dominguez Perez, Leinier  g  CUB  2713 (0)  0 (-13)  29  26  Bacrot, Etienne  g  FRA  2710 (-4)  25 (+6)  30  19  Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime  g  FRA  2710 (-17)  15 (+6)  31  36  Tomashevsky, Evgeny  g  RUS  2708 (+7)  18 (+4)  32  28  Vitiugov, Nikita  g  RUS  2707 (-3)  18 (+3)  33  32  Motylev, Alexander  g  RUS  2704 (-1)  21 (+3)  34  38  Rublevsky, Sergei  g  RUS  2704 (+7)  9 (+1)  35  30  Vallejo Pons, Francisco  g  ESP  2703 (-5)  30 (+20)  36  34  Kamsky, Gata  g  USA  2702 (0)  9 (-19)  37  37  Alekseev, Evgeny  g  RUS  2700 (0)  20 (+11)  38  44  Onischuk, Alexander  g  USA  2699 (+12)  9 (0)  39  35  Kasimdzhanov, Rustam  g  UZB  2699 (-3)  3 (+3)  40  39  Nielsen, Peter Heine  g  DEN  2698 (+1)  9 (+9)  41  33  Adams, Michael  g  ENG  2697 (-7)  19 (+9)  42  78  Nepomniachtchi, Ian  g  RUS  2695 (+39)  20 (+2)  43  43  Akopian, Vladimir  g  ARM  2694 (+6)  11 (+2)  44  46  Sasikiran, Krishnan  g  IND  2690 (+4)  6 (-27)  45  56  Fressinet, Laurent  g  FRA  2689 (+19)  28 (+18)  46  42  Le, Quang Liem  g  VIE  2687 (-2)  13 (-22)  47  41  Naiditsch, Arkadij  g  GER  2686 (-5)  34 (+12)  48  47  Short, Nigel D  g  ENG  2685 (-1)  9 (-4)  49  48  Miroshnichenko, Evgenij  g  UKR  2684 (-2)  4 (+4)  50  51  Polgar, Judit  g  HUN  2682 (0)  0 (0)  51  50  Bu, Xiangzhi  g  CHN  2681 (-1)  3 (-15)  52  54  Kurnosov, Igor  g  RUS  2680 (+6)  28 (+19)  53  -  Efimenko, Zahar  g  UKR  2677 (+)  29 (+)  54  80  Timofeev, Artyom  g  RUS  2677 (+22)  18 (0)  55  53  Sargissian, Gabriel  g  ARM  2677 (+2)  11 (-4)  56  73  Berkes, Ferenc  g  HUN  2676 (+17)  19 (+19)  57  52  Caruana, Fabiano  g  ITA  2675 (-5)  21 (-1)  58  71  Riazantsev, Alexander  g  RUS  2674 (+14)  20 (+11)  59  68  Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter  g  ROU  2672 (+11)  19 (+6)  60  55  Ganguly, Surya Shekhar  g  IND  2672 (0)  0 (-13)  61  63  Inarkiev, Ernesto  g  RUS  2669 (+2)  18 (+9)  62  59  Moiseenko, Alexander  g  UKR  2669 (+1)  17 (+8)  63  -  Bruzon Batista, Lazaro  g  CUB  2668 (+)  27 (+)  64  49  Bologan, Viktor  g  MDA  2668 (-16)  21 (+3)  65  60  Grachev, Boris  g  RUS  2667 (0)  17 (-10)  66  62  Ni, Hua  g  CHN  2667 (0)  7 (-6)  67  64  So, Wesley  g  PHI  2665 (0)  0 (-22)  68  86  Roiz, Michael  g  ISR  2664 (+12)  27 (+21)  69  45  Volokitin, Andrei  g  UKR  2664 (-23)  25 (+16)  70  65  Najer, Evgeniy  g  RUS  2663 (-2)  28 (+10)  71  57  Areshchenko, Alexander  g  UKR  2663 (-7)  22 (+22)  72  61  Bareev, Evgeny  g  RUS  2663 (-4)  11 (-7)  73  70  Wojtaszek, Radoslaw  g  POL  2663 (+3)  5 (-13)  74  58  Georgiev, Kiril  g  BUL  2662 (-7)  24 (+6)  75  89  Sutovsky, Emil  g  ISR  2661 (+11)  11 (-9)  76  69  Harikrishna, P.  g  IND  2660 (0)  0 (-27)  77  87  Smeets, Jan  g  NED  2659 (+8)  6 (-8)  78  76  Khismatullin, Denis  g  RUS  2657 (0)  18 (0)  79  101  Zvjaginsev, Vadim  g  RUS  2656 (+13)  18 (+9)  80  79  Avrukh, Boris  g  ISR  2656 (0)  0 (0)  81  82  Dreev, Alexey  g  RUS  2655 (+2)  21 (+12)  82  90  Fridman, Daniel  g  GER  2654 (+4)  36 (+26)  83  -  Sokolov, Ivan  g  BIH  2654 (+)  25 (+)  84  -  Van Wely, Loek  g  NED  2653 (+)  13 (+)  85  -  Mamedov, Rauf  g  AZE  2653 (+)  11 (+)  86  91  Zhou, Jianchao  g  CHN  2652 (+2)  4 (-5)  87  66  Korobov, Anton  g  UKR  2649 (-14)  13 (+4)  88  -  Kobalia, Mikhail  g  RUS  2648 (+)  20 (+)  89  93  Zhigalko, Sergei  g  BLR  2647 (-1)  20 (-9)  90  92  Fedorchuk, Sergey A.  g  UKR  2646 (-3)  13 (-5)  91  77  Beliavsky, Alexander G  g  SLO  2645 (-12)  25 (+25)  92  -  Socko, Bartosz  g  POL  2644 (+)  18 (+)  93  88  Seirawan, Yasser  g  USA  2644 (-7)  3 (+2)  94  98  Milov, Vadim  g  SUI  2644 (0)  0 (0)  95  96  Andreikin, Dmitry  g  RUS  2643 (-2)  5 (-4)  96  100  Lastin, Alexander  g  RUS  2643 (0)  0 (-9)  97  -  Giri, Anish  g  NED  2642 (+)  24 (+)  98  83  Savchenko, Boris  g  RUS  2642 (-10)  17 (-1)  99  -  Nguyen, Ngoc Truong Son  g  VIE  2642 (+)  0 (+)  100  95  Gustafsson, Jan  g  GER  2640 (-6)  24 (+14)  101  75  Cheparinov, Ivan  g  BUL  2640 (-17)  11 (-8)  102  -  Vuckovic, Bojan  g  SRB  2640 (+)  11 (+)  103  -  Sandipan, Chanda  g  IND  2640 (+)  2 (+) FIDE MAY 2010 RATING LIST: TOP 100 WOMEN Rank   Old    Name Title Country Rating Games  1  1  Polgar, Judit  g  HUN  2682 (0)  0 (0)  2  2  Koneru, Humpy  g  IND  2622 (0)  0 (-10)  3  3  Hou, Yifan  g  CHN  2589 (+19)  12 (-6)  4  4  Stefanova, Antoaneta  g  BUL  2560 (+5)  16 (+6)  5  5  Kosintseva, Nadezhda  m  RUS  2553 (-1)  11 (-7)  6  9  Cramling, Pia  g  SWE  2536 (+13)  21 (0)  7  7  Kosintseva, Tatiana  g  RUS  2534 (+10)  11 (-7)  8  6  Muzychuk, Anna  m  SLO  2529 (-4)  22 (+9)  9  10  Lahno, Kateryna  g  UKR  2527 (+9)  3 (+3)  10  12  Sebag, Marie  g  FRA  2524 (+18)  14 (+5)  11  8  Kosteniuk, Alexandra  g  RUS  2519 (-5)  6 (-4)  12  23  Cmilyte, Viktorija  m  LTU  2514 (+29)  24 (+14)  13  11  Chiburdanidze, Maia  g  GEO  2514 (0)  0 (0)  14  16  Pogonina, Natalija  wg  RUS  2501 (+5)  6 (-1)  15  15  Ju, Wenjun  wg  CHN  2500 (0)  0 (-9)  16  17  Zhukova, Natalia  wg  UKR  2499 (+7)  17 (+7)  17  19  Zhao, Xue  g  CHN  2493 (+3)  8 (-10)  18  28  Harika, Dronavalli  m  IND  2491 (+18)  9 (-15)  19  20  Galliamova, Alisa  m  RUS  2487 (0)  0 (-9)  20  22  Paehtz, Elisabeth  m  GER  2485 (-1)  30 (+21)  21  33  Socko, Monika  g  POL  2485 (+20)  21 (+13)  22  26  Xu, Yuhua  g  CHN  2484 (+6)  2 (+2)  23  21  Hoang Thanh Trang  g  HUN  2482 (-5)  11 (+11)  24  14  Javakhishvili, Lela  m  GEO  2482 (-18)  11 (-8)  25  24  Dzagnidze, Nana  g  GEO  2478 (-1)  11 (-9)  26  13  Mkrtchian, Lilit  m  ARM  2477 (-26)  11 (+11)  27  27  Zhu, Chen  g  QAT  2476 (0)  0 (-7)  28  25  Ruan, Lufei  wg  CHN  2474 (-5)  1 (+1)  29  18  Danielian, Elina  m  ARM  2473 (-18)  12 (+10)  30  36  Zatonskih, Anna  m  USA  2470 (+9)  27 (+17)  31  39  Dembo, Yelena  m  GRE  2470 (+13)  11 (+11)  32  44  Ushenina, Anna  m  UKR  2468 (+16)  15 (+15)  33  30  Melia, Salome  m  GEO  2466 (-1)  20 (-11)  34  31  Vijayalakshmi, Subbaraman  m  IND  2466 (0)  0 (-11)  35  29  Gaponenko, Inna  m  UKR  2465 (-7)  20 (+15)  36  41  Skripchenko, Almira  m  FRA  2464 (+8)  17 (+17)  37  34  Tan, Zhongyi  wg  CHN  2464 (0)  2 (+2)  38  37  Rajlich, Iweta  m  POL  2460 (+1)  22 (+14)  39  38  Gunina, Valentina  wf  RUS  2457 (0)  15 (-3)  40  40  Polgar, Sofia  m  HUN  2457 (0)  0 (0)  41  35  Krush, Irina  m  USA  2455 (-6)  23 (-1)  42  42  Tairova, Elena  m  RUS  2455 (0)  0 (0)  43  49  Muzychuk, Mariya  m  UKR  2452 (+8)  32 (+19)  44  50  Shen, Yang  wg  CHN  2452 (+8)  3 (+3)  45  43  Hunt, Harriet V  m  ENG  2452 (0)  0 (0)  46  47  Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan  g  SCO  2449 (+2)  16 (+6)  47  56  Khurtsidze, Nino  m  GEO  2448 (+14)  11 (-2)  48  52  Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina  m  RUS  2447 (+9)  16 (+7)  49  48  Atalik, Ekaterina  m  TUR  2444 (-1)  5 (+5)  50  53  Moser, Eva  m  AUT  2440 (+3)  32 (+25)  51  51  Huang, Qian  wg  CHN  2437 (-2)  3 (+3)  52  57  Repkova, Eva  m  SVK  2434 (0)  29 (+29)  53  54  Zhang, Xiaowen  wg &nb   http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/eljanov-is-ukraines-number-one/ Sat, 01 May 2010 08:28:59 +0000       TOP SECRET Chess Video The link to this secret video is at the end of this post Hello all! Tomorrow April 16, I will be flying to Colombia (first Bogotá, then Medellin, finally Cali) where I will spend one week on a big promotional event: the Tarrito Rojo Chess Talent 201o. On the last day of my trip, April 21, I will inaugurate the wonderful Champions for Peace program for kids in Puerto Tejada to be able to learn and play chess. I will try to keep you posted about it but my schedule will be very tight, I will need to get up every morning at 5 - 5-30 am which is so early for me, and the program each day runs till late at night. But for sure you will be able to read about it on my Twitter feed. A few posts ago I promised to tell you more about the Russian Team Championship in Dagomys. I played some good games (such as the games against Romanko and also the one against Cmilyte) and at the same time I had some disastrous loses (against Stefanova and Zhukova). Overall I did 3/6 and a performance of 2475, lower than my current rating of 2524. In the women's tournament everything was decided on the first board in the game between Natalia Zhukova and Victorija Cmilyte. Natalia had some advantage but in time trouble Viktorija was more precise and was able to win the game, which led her team of Saint-Petersburg to gold medals. [Event "11th TCh-RUS Women"] [Site "Dagomys RUS"] [Date "2010.4.7"] [Round "7"] [White "Zhukova,N"] [Black "Cmilyte,V"] [Result "0-1"] [Eco "D86"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Bc4 c5 8.Ne2 Nc6 9.Be3 O-O 10.O-O Bg4 11.f3 Bd7 12.Rb1 Rc8 13.Bd3 Qc7 14.Qd2 Rfd8 15.d5 Ne5 16.c4 e6 17.Nf4 b6 18.Be2 Ba4 19.Qc1 Qe7 20.Qa3 Be8 21.Nh3 exd5 22.cxd5 h5 23.Rfd1 Qd7 24.Bb5 Qe7 25.Ba6 Rb8 26.Nf2 f6 27.Nd3 Kh7 28.Bf4 Bf7 29.Bg3 Bh6 30.Re1 Bg8 31.f4 Nxd3 32.Bxd3 h4 33.Bxh4 Bxf4 34.Kh1 Be5 35.Re3 Kg7 36.Rh3 Bf7 37.Bg3 Rh8 38.Bxe5 Qxe5 39.Qxa7 Rxh3 40.gxh3 Rh8 41.Qd7 c4 42.Bc2 Qc3 43.e5 Qf3+ 44.Kg1 Rh5 45.exf6+ Kh6 0-1 Meanwhile the strong Third Kuala Lumpur Open in Malaysia was won by the 16-year old Hou Yifan who took 7,5 points out of 9 and finished on the clear first place, congratulations to her! To finish this post I'm offering you a TOP secret video of my recent training with the "Chess Terminator" ROBOT my father created. Just don't tell anybody my secret training method! ;-) Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/04/top-secret-chess-video.html Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:14:00 +0000       Traveling South - East - West Hello all! I was traveling so much last days and barely was able to check my mail. After the Russian Team Chess Championship in Dagomys, I flew immediately to Novosibirsk to take part in the forum about the development of Siberia. The next day I flew to Moscow and today after several interviews and meetings I'm finally able to make a short post here. I'll be flying back to Miami on Monday and will try to prepare a post about the most interesting games of Dagomys which was won by the team from Saint-Petersburg with Viktorija Cmilyte playing on the first board. Next week I will be flying to Colombia for a big promotional event, the Tarrito Rojo Chess Talent. Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/04/traveling-south-east-west.html Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:44:00 +0000       ShSM-64 wins Russian Team Championship in Dagomys Not the catchiest of headlines, that – but the Russian teams aren't know for their pretty names. The Championships were played in three groups, the Premier, Higher and Women's Leagues. Sergey Karjakin and Alexander Riazantsev were the top performers amongst the men (2889 and 2885), whild Viktorija Cmilyte shone with a 2700 performance amongst the women. Illustrated report.   http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6247 Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT       Campionato russo a squadre: diretta del VIII turno VIII turno  Movsesian - Caruana 1/2 la squadra di Fabiano ad un passo dal titolo domani IX ed ultimo turno Live h. 13 Dopo il turno di riposo concesso dal suo capitano nel settimo turno, Fabiano Caruana torna in pista nell'ottavo e penultimo turno della "Premier League" del Campionato Russo che prevede lo scontro diretto tra la squadra di Fabiano e l'SPb Chess Fed di Ivanchuk e Svidler, sfida che probabilmente sarà decisiva per le sorti di questo Campionato. Il nostro portacolori se la vedrà con il Grande Maestro slovacco Sergei Movsesian.  Nel frattempo si è conclusa l'11esima edizione del Campionato Russo a squadre Femminile che ha visto la vittoria del SPb Chess Fed della Cmilyte e della Socko. Delusione per le favorite della vigilia dell'AVS  (Stefanova, Anna e Mariya Muzycuk e Pogonina), giunte solo terze.  Cmilyte, Socko, Ketevan, Atalik e Bodnaruk, le vincitrici del campionato femminile Movsesian, Sergei (SVK, 2705) -  Caruana, Fabiano (ITA, 2680)   17th Capionato russo a squadre, Premier League. VIII turno. Dagomys (Sochi/Russia), 09.04.2010 1. e4 c5 2. Cf3 d6 3. Ab5+ Ad7 4. Axd7+ Dxd7 5. c4 Cf6 6. Cc3 g6 7. d4 cxd4 8. Cxd4 Ag7 9. h3 Dc7 10. b3 Da5 11. Ad2 Cxe4 12. Cxe4 De5 13. Db1 f5 14. Ac3 Dxe4+ 15. Qxe4 fxe4 16. Cb5 Axc3+ 17. Cxc3 Rf8 18. Cxe4 tutto come la Movsesian - Dominguez Perez 1/2 Corus A 2009 18.. Ca6 Dominguez Perez sviluppò il cavallo in c6 . Lo sviluppo del cavallo in a6, anche se dopo qualche mossa, si ebbe nella partita Stevic - Predojevic 1/2, campionato sloveno a squadre del 2009. 19. Td1 Tf5 20. 0-0 adesso con 20...Rd7 si rientrerebbe nella partita del campionato sloveno citata, che subito dopo terminò con una patta d'accordo  1/2 una patta veloce per Fabiano che ha indovinato la preparazione casalinga della partita l'avversario odierno di Caruana VIII turno gli incontri della squadra di Caruana 4   3 [28.5]   ShSM-64 3-3 SPb Chess Fed   [26.5] 6 1 [3.0] 2750 Gelfand, Boris 1/2 Ivanchuk, Vassily 2748 [3.0] 1 2 [4.0] 2725 Karjakin, Sergey 1/2 Svidler, Peter 2750 [3.5] 2 3 [3.0] 2715 Wang, Hao 1/2 Vitiugov, Nikita 2710 [3.5] 3 4 [3.5] 2680 Caruana, Fabiano 1/2 Movsesian, Sergei 2709 [4.5] 4 5 [2.5] 2667 Grachev, Boris 1/2 Zvjaginsev, Vadim 2643 [3.0] 5 8 [3.0] 2652 Savchenko, Boris 1/2 Efimenko, Zahar 2640 [4.5] 6 Classifica dopo 8 turni Place SNo. Team Local Match Points Total vs+ Wins B.1 1 3 ShSM-64 2700 14.0 31.5 8;9;2;10;4;5; 6 4.5 2 4 Economist-SGSEU - 1 2704 12.0 30.5 7;9;2;10;5; 5 6.0 3 6 SPb Chess Fed 2700 12.0 29.5 5;10;7;9;2; 5 4.0 4 2 Yugra 2689 10.0 26.5 9;1;10;5;7; 5 4.5 5 1 Ural 2618 9.0 25.5 10;6;7; 3 5.0 6 8 Tomsk-400 2687 8.0 26.0 10;9; 2 4.5 7 9 Etude-Contact 2555 6.0 22.5 5;7;10; 3 5.0 8 5 M.Chigorin Chess Club 2584 6.0 19.5 7;8;1; 3 3.0 9 7 Economist-SGSEU - 2 2548 3.0 16.5 10; 1 2.5 10 10 BelGU 2493 0.0 12.0 0 1.0 Classifica Finale del campionato femminile Place SNo. Team Local Match Points Total vs+ Wins B.1 1 1 SPb Chess Fed 2461 9.0 15.0 2;3;5;7; 4 4.0 2 7 Giprorechtrans 2409 8.0 13.0 2;4;5; 3 3.0 3 4 AVS 2507 7.0 14.5 1;2;3; 3 4.0 4 6 ShSM 2448 6.0 13.0 5; 1 3.0 5 3 Economist-SGSEU 2446 6.0 11.5 2;5; 2 3.5 6 5 Dvorets 2294 3.0 9.0 4; 1 1.5 7 2 M.Chigorin Chess Club 2296 3.0 8.0 6; 1 2.0 Regolamento I dieci Team si affrontano in un girone all'italiana di sola andata. Le sfide si disputano su sei scacchiere. Calendario si gioca dal 1 al 10 aprile. Unico giorno di riposo il 6. Inizio delle partite previsto per le ore 15 locali (13 in Italia) Tempo di riflessione 100' x 40 mosse + 50' x 20 mosse + 30" di incremento per mosse dalla prima mossa SITI UTILI Articolo di presentazione di Darkstorm Risultati Sito Federazione Scacchistica Russa VISORE   http://www.scacchierando.net/dblog/articolo.asp?articolo=1792 2010-04-09T12:00:00+01:00       Space Coast Chess Simul Poster Hi Everybody, I'm in Moscow now, in between two planes, will be flying east in about an hour. I just have time to share with you the poster of my April 24 Space Coast Chess Simul. It's still not too late to sign up. Tomorrow I'll write about the end of the Russian Team Championship in Dagomys. Our team finished 4th, and I did 3/6, which is a performance of 2475 ELO. The great winner was Viktorija Cmilyte, who only lost one game to me, winning the remaining 4, that's a performance of 2662! Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/04/space-coast-chess-simul-poster.html Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:19:00 +0000       Russian Team Chess Championship 2010, Last Round Preview Hello my friends! After my unexpected loss in the 4th round to Natalia Zhukova, I came back nicely by beating Viktorija Cmilyte today with Black. So I'm at 2 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw, that's 50% and a performance just below 2500, and one game to go tomorrow. My team of Moscow drew their match today and overall is 4th, but tomorrow hopefully we can do well against the Chigorin Chess Club and pass in front of AVS who is not playing tomorrow, and get a medal. I'll let you know how it goes. For the moment the team Giprorechtrans with Zhukova, Munguntuul, Zaiatz, Vasilevich and Fominykh are leading with 8 match points, and very good chances for the Gold! All the games, past and live, can be seen on http://livechess.chessdom.com/site/. Here below is my game against Cmilyte, I hope you like it (especially my move 36...f3!): Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/04/russian-team-chess-championship-2010_06.html Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:41:00 +0000       Dagomys First Round Hello dear chess fans, Today was the first round of the very strong Russian Team Championships, taking place in Dagomys, close to Sochi, Russia. Many of the strongest women chess players of the planet are participating, with 5 holding the Grandmaster (GM) title, and the average tournament rating above 2400 ELO. Even though it's the Russian Team Championship, many non-Russian top women are playing for Russian clubs, making it extra strong and interesting. My team (Moscow) drew today against the team of Economist Saratov 2-2 . I drew my game, playing Black against Chinese Grandmaster Zhao Xue (see photos), rated 2490 FIDE. You can see the game below. Tomorrow will be an important day, as our team will play AVS Krasnoturyinsk, which is the rating favorite, boasting an average ELO of 2508. Important links: - Official Organizer Page - The Tournament Table Page - The Board Results Page - My results Page - My team results Page - Live Games (3 PM local time = 1 PM Paris time = 7 AM New York time) - PGN Player so you can copy/paste PGN moves to view games. The team compositions are as follows: SNo. Team Fed. Local SNo. Title Name Fed. FIDE Birthday 1 SPb Chess Fed RUS 2461 1* IM Cmilyte, Viktorija LTU 2485 1983- - 2* GM Socko, Monika POL 2465 1978- - 3* GM Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan SCO 2447 1968- - 4* IM Atalik, Ekaterina TUR 2445 1982- - 5 WGM Bodnaruk, Anastasia RUS 2384 1992- - 6 WGM Demina, Julia RUS 2339 1969- - 2 M.Chigorin Chess Club RUS 2296 1* WIM Molchanova, Tatjana RUS 2369 1980- - 2* WIM Akatova, Ekaterina RUS 2275 1987- - 3* WIM Bronnikova, Elizaveta RUS 2271 1985- - 4* WIM Ivkina, Olga RUS 2268 1985- - 5 WIM Solovjova, Valentina RUS 2256 1986- - 6 WIM Gromova, Iulia RUS 2226 1985- - 3 Economist-SGSEU RUS 2446 1* GM Zhao, Xue CHN 2490 1985- - 2* IM Ushenina, Anna UKR 2452 1985- - 3* IM Paehtz, Elisabeth GER 2486 1985- - 4* WGM Iljushina, Olga RUS 2356 1981- - 5 WGM Kovanova, Baira RUS 2385 1987- - 6 WIM Tarasova, Viktoriya RUS 2261 1989- - 4 AVS RUS 2508 1* GM Stefanova, Antoaneta BUL 2555 1979- - 2* IM Muzychuk, Anna SLO 2533 1990- - 3* WGM Pogonina, Natalija RUS 2501 1985- - 4* IM Muzychuk, Mariya UKR 2444 1992- - 5 WGM Savina, Anastasia RUS 2391 1992- - 6 WGM Shadrina, Tatiana RUS 2431 1974- - 5 Dvorets RUS 2294 1* IM Romanko, Marina RUS 2409 1986- - 2* WIM Paikidze, Nazi GEO 2322 1993- - 3* WFM Repina, Varvara RUS 2240 1992- - 4* Bukhteeva, Viktoria RUS 2206 1993- - 6 ShSM RUS 2448 1* GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra RUS 2524 1984- - 2* IM Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina RUS 2438 1974- - 3* WFM Gunina, Valentina RUS 2457 1989- - 4* IM Matveeva, Svetlana RUS 2373 1969- - 5 WGM Girya, Olga RUS 2362 1991- - 7 Giprorechtrans RUS 2409 1* WGM Zhukova, Natalia UKR 2492 1979- - 2* WGM Munguntuul, Batkhuyag MGL 2428 1987- - 3* IM Zaiatz, Elena RUS 2391 1969- - 4* IM Vasilevich, Irina RUS 2324 1985- - 5 WIM Fominykh, Maria RUS 2268 1987- - Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/04/dagomys-first-round.html Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:40:00 +0000       Caruana nel Campionato a squadre Russo 2010 ! Caruana nel Campionato Russo a Squadre! Sarà possibile ammirare dal 1 aprile a Dagomys, nei pressi di Sochi sul Mar Nero, la "Premier League" del Campionato Russo a squadre (10 team), competizione di livello assoluto che per il secondo anno consecutivo annovera tra i propri protagonisti il nostro Fabiano Caruana, una delle punte del team di ShSM-64. In squadra con lui ci saranno campioni del calibro di Gelfand e Karjakin, l'italiano in terza e poi Wang Hao e Grachev. Jakovenko,campione 2009 come prima scacchiera del Tomsk-400, è passato invece nella squadra di Ugra dove milita anche Malakhov. Quest'ultimo  russo sta attraversando un buon periodo di forma, infatti si è messo in mostra nelle ultime uscite ed in particolare nella recente World Cup arrivando fino alle fasi finali. Tra le favorite vanno sicuramente citate l'Ural (con Grischuk e Shirov) e San Pietroburgo (con Ivanchuk e Svidler). Tra i giovani russi si segnala Vitiugov (San Pietroburgo) e Tomashevsky (Ekonomist) che hanno contribuito fortemente alla vittoria della Russia al recente Mondiale a Squadre. Il loro apporto è stato fondamentale per riportare la loro nazionale ad una medaglia d'oro dopo alcuni anni di cocenti delusioni. In quell'occasione inoltre hanno sfoderato anche alcune partite di bellezza assoluta. Tra i possibili protagonisti da tenere d'occhio anche il teenager Sjugirov, ormai qualcosa in più di una promessa. Tornando a Fabiano va ricordato che l'anno scorso fu il miglior giocatore in termini di perfomance, infatti giocando in terza e quarta scacchiera realizzò un ottimo 5 su 6  ottenendo una perfomance pari a 2856 punti elo. Purtroppo la sua squadra vide svanire i sogni di vittoria facendolo riposare all'ultimo turno e la ShSM-64 perse contro SPbChFed a causa della sconfitta in ultima scacchiera dove Efimenko(SPbChFed) ebbe la meglio su Savchenko(ShSm-64). Classifica finale 2009: 1 Tomsk-400 11.0 23.5 2 ShSM-64 9.0 24.5 3 Ural 9.0 24.0 4 Economist-SGSEU - 1 9.0 23.5 5 SPbChFed 8.0 23.0 6 TPS 6.0 20.5 7 Eurasia-Logistic 4.0 19.5 8 M.Chigorin CC 0.0 9.5 Ad impreziosire la manifestazione ci saranno come al solito altri due tornei in contemporanea:la "Higher League" e il Campionato a squadre femminile, entrambi a 7 squadre. Probabilmente sarà possibile seguire alcune fasi del Campionato Femminile sul blog della Kosteniuk e sul suo canale youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/chessqueen). Caruana premiato nel 2009 Riportiamo ora la composizione dei team, anche se da oggi all' 1 Aprile potrebbero ancora avere luogo dei piccoli cambiamenti. Premier League Ekonomist SGSEU-1 (Saratov): Alexander Morozevich Wang Yue Ni Hua Pavel Eljanov Evgeny Tomashevsky Evgeny Alekseev Michael Roiz Dmitry Andreikin Alexander Morozevich Ural (Sverdlovsk): Alexander Grischuk Alexei Shirov Emil Sutovsky Evgeny Bareev Alexei Dreev Vadim Milov Igor Khenkin Vladimir Epishin Alexander Grischuk ShSM-64 (Moscow): Boris Gelfand, Sergey Karjakin Fabiano Caruana Wang Hao, Boris Grachev Boris Savchenko Evgeniy Najer Alexander Riazantsev Vladimir Potkin Boris Gelfand Sankt-Petersburg Chess Federation: Vassily Ivanchuk, Peter Svidler Nikita Vitiugov Sergei Movsesian Zahar Efimenko Konstantin Sakaev Vadim Zvjagintsev V.Emelin Vitiugov (3° scacchiera dietro Ivanchuk e Svidler) Ugra (Khanty-Mansiysk): Dmitry Jakovenko Vladimir Malakhov Alexander Khalifman Sergei Rublevsky Sanan Sjugirov Konstantin Landa Malakhov  (2° scacchiera) Tomsk-400: Ruslan Ponomariov Alexander Motylev Ernesto Inarkiev Viktor Bologan Denis Khismatullin Farrukh Ammonatov Artyom Timofeev Sergei Tiviakov Igor Kurnosov Motylev (2° scacchiera) In gara ci saranno anche altre 4 squadre, ovvero: BelGU (Belgorod), Ekonomist SGSEU-2 (Saratov), Chigorin Club (Sankt-Petersburg) e Etud-Kontakt (Moscow) Tomsk-400: vincitori del campionato 2009  La squadra di Fabiano, ShSM-64, 2° classificata nel 2009 Women's Premier League AVS: Antoaneta Stefanova, Anna Muzychuk, Natalia Pogonina Maria Muzychuk Antoaneta Stefanova Anna Muzychuk Natalija Pogonina Moscow Chess Federation: Alexandra Kosteniuk, Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, Valentina Gunina Svetlana Matveeva Kosteniuk, Campionessa del Mondo Ekonomist SGSEU (Saratov): Zhao Xue, Elisabeth Paehtz, Anna Ushenina Baira Kovanova Ushenina Sankt-Petersburg Chess Federation: Viktorija Cmilyte, Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Monika Socko Ekaterina Atalik Monika Socko ( POL) , fresca Campionessa Europea LINKS UTILI: Diretta online Sito Federazione Scacchistica Russa   http://www.scacchierando.net/dblog/articolo.asp?articolo=1771 2010-03-23T00:15:00+01:00       Russian Team Chess Championship 2010 Hello all! Next Monday, March 29, I will be flying to Moscow, and 2 days later to Sochi. I'm going to Dagomys to take part in the Russian Team Chess Championship. On the image below you can see the red dot, that's where Dagomys is, in the South of Russia, on the coast of the Black Sea. There will be two men (higher and first leagues) tournaments and one women tournament. There will be many strong GM's playing and this tournament is a qualification for the World and Euro Club Cups that will take place later on this year. The women tournament will take place from April 1 to April 7, 2010. There will be 7 teams playing in the women's tournament. I will be playing for the Moscow Chess Federation Team. My teammates will be Valentina Gunina, Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, Svetlana Matveeva and Olga Girya. The other 6 teams of the event are: Saint-Petersburg Chess Fedearation (with Monika Socko, Viktorija Cmilyte, Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Ekaterina Atalik, A. Bodnaruk and Julia Demina); Giprorechtrans (with Natalia Zhukova on the first board); Moscow Palace (with Marina Romanko on the first board); AVS (with Antoaneta Stefanova; Anna and Maria Muzychuk, Natalia Pogonina, A. Savina and Tatiana Shadrina); GUDO SDUSHOR from St.Petersburg and Ekonomist SGSEU-Saratov (with Anna Ushenina, Zhao Xue, Elizabeth Paehtz, Baira Kovanova, Maria Kursova). The tournament will have live coverage on the official web-site of the Russian Chess Federation. I will let you know how this tournament goes and promise to send you many photos and news. Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/03/russian-team-chess-championship-2010.html Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:30:00 +0000       Rijeka: Nepomniachtchi, Cmilyte lead into final After nine round Ian Nepomniachtchi was sole leader in the open group, with 7.5/9, followed by no less than seven other players on 7.0/9 and a further eleven on 6.5/9. So what would they all do? Nepomniachtchi drew in 14 moves, and two of his main rivals in 16. Thank heavens for the women, where the top boards brought in decisive results. The hero and leader was Lithuanian IM Viktorija Cmilyte.   http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6191 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT       Rijeka: tiebreak qualifiers & statistics The European Championship gold medal winners were already known (Nepomniachtchi and Cramling), but for deciding the other medals and World Cup qualifiers, tiebreak matches were played on Thursday in Rijeka. We bring you the results and some statistics. The 11th European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship was held from 5th to 19th of March 2010 in Rijeka, in new Zamet Centre sports hall. The event was organized by chess club “Rijeka”, in agreement with the Croatian Chess Federation under the auspices of the City of Rijeka and the European Chess Union. It is open to all players representing the chess federations which comprise the European Chess Union (FIDE zones 1.1 to 1.9) regardless of their title or rating. There was also no limit of participants per federation. The championship was an 11-round Swiss in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules and FIDE Rules of Chess. The rate of play was 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. As always, the European Championship was a qualification event for the next World Cup. Tiebreaks On Thursday tiebreaks were played to establish the silver and bronze medal in the open section, the bronze medal in the women’s section and to establish the qualifiers for the World Cup. Jobava beat Timofeev in the first tiebreak game and then drew the second to claim silver. European Championship 2010 | Tie-break match for silver and bronze medal Jobava (r.) beat Timofeev with Black in game 1 of the tiebreak The results of the other tiebreaks: European Championship 2010 | Tie-break matches for qualification 1st round 2nd round You can download all women’s tiebreak’s results in PDF here. The following 23 players qualified for the next World Cup: Nepomiachtchi, Jobava, Timofeev (numbers 1-3) Efimenko, Lysyj, Almasi, Tomashevsky, Rodshtein, Salgado Lopez, Pashikian (numbers 4-10) Mamedov, Movsesian, Drozdovskij, Babula, Vorobiov, Akopian, Nisipeanu, Alekseev, Socko, Grachev, Halkias, Potkin (tiebreak winners) From the women’s section Cramling, Cmilyte, Socko, T. Kosintseva, Sebag, Zhukova, Dembo, Stefanova, A. Muzychuk, N. Kosinsteva, M. Muzycduk Kovalevskaya, Ziazulkina and Rajlich qualified. We received some interesting statistics and quotes in a last press release from the organizers: Rijeka’s Championship in quotes and numbers Yesterday, March 18th the 11th European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship ended in Rijeka. As you already know, the gold was won by the 20-year old Russian Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi and by Swedish GM Pia Cramling. The Championship achieved various records, and here are some of the numbers. Total of 566 chess players from 41 European countries participated in Rijeka. 440 players with a chess title, 196 of them Grandmasters, as well as 158 players female chess players, 134 of them with a chess title. Now, here are some of the details about matches played in Rijeka: total of 3.078 matches were played and 2.088 or 68% of them ended by win or loss situation. Only 32% of the matches resulted with a draw. A total of 41 norms for titles of man and women Grandmasters and International masters were won at both tournaments. A total of 8 male and 1 female player have won a norm for the title of a Grandmaster. 23 male chess players qualified for the World Cup and 14 female players qualified for the World Championships. This Championship will be remembered by the large number of visitors who watched 75 broadcasted matches every day. Up to now, our web site was visited more than two million times. March 11th, was a record day, when there was more than 200.000 visitors. Some 1.500 visitors passed through the sport’s hall of the Centre Zamet. Here are some of the quotes about this Championship: Anatoly Karpov, ex World Champion: “I was at Croatia 30 years ago, and the organization of this Championship in Rijeka delighted me. The organizers provided ideal conditions for a large number of players and so I congratulate them for the excellent organization“. Georgios Makropoulos, FIDE Deputy President: “This is the best organized European Individual Chess Championship, because excellent accomodation and playing conditions are provided for all players. Boris Kutin, ECU President: “No championship has ever received as many compliments as this one in Rijeka. This is surely the best one.” Zoltan Almasi, GM: “This is the strongest European Championship ever and as well the best organized championship for sure. Opatija is a very nice place and I fell excellent here.” Ian Nepomniachtchi, GM: “I love this country and I must admit that I was warmly welcomed in Croatia. This is a country full of friendly individuals. Conditions for the game are also great.” Pia Cramling, GM: “This is my first time in Croatia and I am really enjoying. Everything is nice here and it is my great pleasure to play in Rijeka. It is very important for men and women to play together so that’s why this sports hall is ideal for this tournament.” Victoria Cmilyte, WGM : “I think this is the best competition ever. Opatija is a beautiful place, and the hall is ideal for playing chess. All this has made this championship very special and unique.” All tiebreak games Game viewer by ChessTempo Silver, gold, bronze: Baadur Jobava, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Artyom Timofeev Silver, gold, bronze: Viktorija Cmilyte, Pia Cramling, Monica Socko Photo courtesy of the official website, more here Links Official website All details and statistics Games in PGN: Men | Women via TWIC   http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/rijeka-qualifiers-statistics/ Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:15:12 +0000       11? Campionato Europeo: diretta XI ed ultimo turno ? Il russo Nepomniachtchi è l'11? Campione Europeo Brunello batte il GM Bosiocic ed è il primo degli italiani con 6.5! Dvirnyy patta con il GM Sedlak e raggiunge Caruana a quota 6 Femminile Pia Cramling Campionessa Europea per la seconda volta! La Sedina patta con la MI Khotenashvili e termina a 6.5 Comprensibilmente deluso per la sconfitta di ieri, che lo ha tagliato fuori dall'obiettivo di entrare tra i 23 che si qualificano alla prossima World Cup, Caruana non riesce a trovare le motivazioni necessarie per terminare bene questo Campionato Europeo e perde con il GM Maiorov.? Nell' XI ed ultimo turno arrivano, invece, ottimi risultati dagli altri giocatori italiani. Brunello batte il GM Bosiocic e termina a 6.5, primo degli italiani. Dvirnyy patta con il GM Sedlak ? e conclude il suo ottimo europeo agganciando Fabiano a quota 6 punti con una perfomance di 2569! Shytaj, Valsecchi e Piscopo vincono e raggiungono Godena e Ortega, che pattano, a quota 5.5. Tra i giocatori non titolati, Corrado Astengo termina in bellezza battendo, con il nero, il MF croato Plenca (2323).? Da segnalare anche la vittoria di Guidi con il Maestro Internazionale Chudinovskikh. Il russo Nepomniachtchi batte Akopian, vince il torneo per distacco e si laurea 11? Campione Europeo.? Femminile La Sedina patta con la MI georgiana Kothenashvili e conclude il suo europeo con un ottimo 6.5/11. Marina Brunello patta con la MI Kachiani-Gersinska (2346) mentre Roberta Brunello e la Tonel vincono e terminano il torneo con un dignitoso 4/11. Purtroppo la Zimina perde e viene raggiunta a quota 4.5 da Marina. La Cramling batte la Cmilyte e vince per la seconda volta il Campionato Europeo. La svedese vinse la prima volta nel 2003, proprio davanti alla giocatrice lituana! Per sapere cosa è successo nel decimo? turno clicca QUI? ? il russo Ian Nepoimniachtchi è il nuovo Campione Europeo Pia Cramling, campionessa europea per la seconda volta! Classifica Finale dei migliori italiani Pos. Nome Elo Punti Perf. Var. Elo 119 Brunello Sabino 2476 6,5 2506 5,30 124 Caruana Fabiano 2680 6,0 2616 -9,80 129 Dvirnyy Daniyyl 2450 6,0 2569 17,30 208 Godena Michele 2561 5,5 2488 -9,60 212 Piscopo Pierluigi 2418 5,5 2435 2,30 231 Shytaj Luca 2472 5,5 2392 -11,30 233 Valsecchi Alessio 2360 5,5 2392 9,75 236 Ortega Lexy 2479 5,5 2348 -14,60 281 Astengo Corrado 2136 5,0 2308 29,40 284 Guidi Maurizio 2067 5,0 2055 4,20 300 Lanzani Mario 2371 4,5 2327 -6,90 307 Bentivegna Francesco 2361 4,5 2267 -18,30 Classifica Finale delle italiane 32 Sedina Elena 2334 6,5 2468 20,30 119 Brunello Marina 2217 4,5 2180 -9,00 124 Zimina Olga 2319 4,5 2127 -27,80 139 Brunello Roberta 2043 4,0 2037 -1,95 143 Tonel Giulia 2023 4,0 1918 -12,45 Classifica Finale, primi 10 direttamente qualificati alla prossima World Cup 1 GM Nepomniachtchi Ian RUS 2656 9,0 63,5 77,5 2868 27,7 2 GM Jobava Baadur GEO 2695 8,5 64,5 79,0 2839 20,0 3 GM Timofeev Artyom RUS 2655 8,5 61,5 75,0 2801 20,5 4 GM Efimenko Zahar UKR 2640 8,0 64,5 78,0 2791 21,8 5 GM Lysyj Igor RUS 2615 8,0 60,5 73,0 2752 19,7 6 GM Almasi Zoltan HUN 2720 8,0 60,0 73,0 2719 5,1 7 GM Tomashevsky Evgeny RUS 2701 8,0 58,5 71,5 2746 6,1 8 GM Rodshtein Maxim ISR 2609 8,0 56,0 67,0 2728 17,0 9 GM Salgado Lopez Ivan ESP 2592 8,0 53,0 65,0 2685 13,7 10 GM Pashikian Arman ARM 2652 8,0 51,0 62,0 2683 4,4 I 13 giocatori qualificati per la World Cup dopo gli spareggi rapid 11 GM Mamedov Rauf AZE 2639 7,5 64,5 78,0 2728 13,9 12 GM Movsesian Sergei SVK 2709 7,5 63,5 77,5 2726 3,1 18 GM Alekseev Evgeny RUS 2700 7,5 60,0 73,5 2722 3,6 21 GM Halkias Stelios GRE 2580 7,5 60,0 72,0 2711 21,3 23 GM Berkes Ferenc HUN 2659 7,5 58,5 72,0 2705 7,2 25 GM Potkin Vladimir RUS 2606 7,5 58,5 71,5 2749 22,1 27 GM Grachev Boris RUS 2667 7,5 58,0 70,5 2705 5,9 28 GM Socko Bartosz POL 2637 7,5 58,0 70,0 2668 5,0 30 GM Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter ROU 2661 7,5 57,0 70,0 2705 6,8 31 GM Zvjaginsev Vadim RUS 2643 7,5 57,0 69,5 2719 11,8 ? GM Vorobiov Evgeny E RUS 2616 7,5 57,0 69,5 2675 9,6 39 GM Drozdovskij Yuri UKR 2627 7,5 52,5 63,0 2632 1,4 40 GM Babula Vlastimil CZE 2554 7,5 52,0 63,0 2650 16,0 Classifica Finale Femminile, prime posizioni 1 GM Cramling Pia SWE 2523 9,0 0 61,5 74,5 2677 19,4 2 IM Cmilyte Viktorija LTU 2485 8,5 0 59,5 73,5 2622 19,4 3 GM Socko Monika POL 2465 8,0 0 63,5 77,5 2595 18,4 4 GM Kosintseva Tatiana RUS 2524 8,0 0 63,0 76,0 2595 9,9 5 GM Sebag Marie FRA 2506 8,0 0 60,5 73,5 2555 6,6 6 WGM Zhukova Natalia UKR 2492 8,0 0 60,5 72,5 2556 8,7 7 IM Dembo Yelena GRE 2457 8,0 0 57,0 69,5 2545 12,7 Regolamento Calendario Il torneo si disputa sulla lunghezza di 11 turni (6-17 marzo). L'inizio delle partite è previsto per le ore 15:30. Unico giorno di riposo sabato 13 marzo. Il 18 marzo si svolgeranno gli eventuali Tie-breaks. Criteri di spareggio in caso di arrivo a pari merito sono previsti i seguenti criteri di spareggio tecnico: a) ?Median-Buchholz 1 b) ?Buchholz c) ?Numero di vittorie? d) Punteggio Progressivo. Spareggi Rapid sono previsti gli spareggi (15'+10" per mossa) solo per stabilire: a)? il Campione Europeo b)? i vincitori di Medaglie c)? I qualificati (22) alla prossima World Cup. Tempo di Riflessione 90' x 40 mosse + 30' per terminare la partita + 30" di incremento per mossa a partire dalla prima mossa.? Partite degli italiani trasmesse nel XI ed ultimo turno GM Maiorov, Nikita (BUL, 2510) - Caruana, Fabiano (ITA, 2680) 1-0 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 c6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O 8. O-O dxc4 9. Bxc4 a6 10. a4 c5 11. Rd1 cxd4 12. exd4 b6 qui si gioca prima Dc7, per attaccare l'alfiere ed impedire d5, e poi b6. Evidentemente Caruana ritiene di poter permettere la fastidiosa spinta di pedone 13. d5 e5 14. Cg5 il cavallo si dirige verso la casa e4 14...De7 15. Cge4? dopo questa mossa, si minaccia la fastidiosa inchiodatura Ag5. Il trattamento dell'apertura da parte di Caruana, a prima vista, sembra essere stato un po' impreciso, e i tempi di riflessione (Fabiano ha già speso oltre 40', il suo avversario 20') sembrano dirci che non sia tutto frutto della preparazione casalinga di Fabiano 15.. Cxe4 16. Cxe4 a5 adesso Ag5 sembra migliore dell'immediata Ae3 perché in pratica forza f6, dando così maggiore forza all'Ac4 tramite il latente scacco di scoperta (eventuale spinta d6, che contemporaneamente attaccherebbe la donna) che si presenterebbe sulla scacchiera. In pratica questa sequenza di mosse inchioderebbe nella sua casa l'Ad6, inibendo così la mossa Cc5 del nero, a meno che il nero sia poi disposto a cedere un pedone 17. Ag5 f6 18. Ae3 Cc5 e Caruana decide di? offrire all'avversario il pedone, per semplificare la posizione e ritendo che la debolezza del pd6 derivante dall'eventuale cambio degli alfieri camposcuro dia al nero un certo compenso 19. Cxc5 bxc5 20. Axc5 Ag4 21. Tdc1 Tfc8 22.Axd6 Dxd6 anche se a costo di un pedone, la posizione di Fabiano si è alleggerita e sembra difendibile. Difficile però intravedere possibilità di vittoria per il nero a meno che Maiorov, che avendo 6.5 punti ha necessità di vincere per accedere agli spareggi per la World Cup, decida di forzare 23. Db3 adesso il raddopio delle torri nere lungo la? colonna c (tramite Tc5 e Tac8) sembra una manovra scontata. Un'altra opzione consiste nell'iniziare a mettere pressione sul pa4 tramite Ad7 23.. Ad7 24. Ab5 Td8 25. Ac6 Tab8 26. Dc3 Tb4 27.h3 Rf7 28. Ta3 Tc8 29. Dc2 g6 30. Tc3 Af5 31. Dd2 Td4? 32. De3 g5 33. Ab5 Txc3 qualcosa non deve aver funzionato nel trattamento della posizione da parte di Caruana che sta recuperando il pedone,? ma a costo della qualità. Comunque entrambi i giocatori sono in zeitnot 34. bxc3 Te4 35. Da7 Rg6 36. c4 Caruana ha tenuto in vita la torre, ma non si vede come ora possa salvarsi dai due pedoni uniti e? passati c e d del bianco. 36... Da3 37. Tf1 Axh3 disperazione, probabilmente non solo per come si è messa questa partita ... 38. Ae8+ Rh6 39. Df7 1-0 Peccato. Fabiano non è riuscito a trovare le motivazioni necessarie per terminare bene un torneo che, pur avendo fallito l'obiettivo principale, non era stato completamente negativo. MI Sedina, Elena (ITA, 2334) - MI Khotenashvili, Bela (GEO, 2448) 1/2 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 Bg7 4. c3 cxd4 5. cxd4 d5 6. exd5 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8.? Nc3 Nbd7 9. O-O Nb6 10. Bb3 Nbxd5 11. Re1 Qd6 12. Ne5 Be6 13. Bg5 Rac8 14. Qd2 Rfd8 15. Rad1 a6 16. h3 b5 17. Nd3 Nxc3 18. bxc3 Bd5 19. Bxd5 Nxd5 20. Nc5 Re8 21. Re4 h5 22. Bh6 Bxh6 23. Qxh6 Qf6 24. Qd2 Rxc5 25. dxc5 Nxc3 26. Qd7 Nxe4 27. Qxe8+ Kg7 28. c6 Qxf2+ 29. Kh1 Qe2 30. Rd8 Qe1+ 31. Kh2 Qg3+ 32. Kg1 Qe3+ 33. Kh2 Qf4+ 34. Kg1 Qc1+ 35. Kh2 Kf6 36. Qd7 Qf4+ 37. Kg1 Qe3+ 38. Kh2 Qg3+ 39. Kg1 Qe3+ 40. Kh2 Qf4+ 41. Kg1 h4 42. c7 Qc1+ 43. Kh2 1/2 Siti Utili sito ufficiale Live Stream risultati su chessresult ?articoli di presentazione di Angelmann ? 1^ parte? 2^ parte ?Report fotografico di Ruigino Tonel   http://www.scacchierando.net/dblog/articolo.asp?articolo=1767 2010-03-18T13:00:00+01:00       Pia Cramling - Women's European Champion 2010 Hello everybody! Today the last tie-break matches of the European championship have been played and it's time to congratulate the winners. Pia Cramling from Sweden took clear first place in the women's European chess championship 2010 , she scored 9 points out of 11, congratulations! It's the second success of the Swedish GM in the continental championships, Pia also took gold 7 years ago in 2003. Viktorija Cmilyte who lost to Pia in the final round took clear second place with 8,5 out of 11. This is Viktorija’s third second-place finish, the other two being in 2003, and 2008. The bronze medal was decided on tie-break since 5 players shared third place with 8 points out of 11. After winning all the tie-break matches Monika Socko won the bronze medal. 1. Pia Cramling 2. Viktorija Cmilyte 3. Monica Socko Congratulations to these 3 ladies on their great performance and fair play! Among the players who scored 7,5 out of 11, tie-break matches were also needed to determine the qualifiers for the 2012 women's world chess championship. Since only 14 qualification places were on play, some players needed to play tie-breaks. Among all the tie-break matches one can notice the win by the 14-year old Ziaziulkina Nastassia (2188) from Belarus who beat Almira Skripchenko in blitz 2-0 to take the final qualifying spot. The full table of the 2010 European Chess Championship can be found at the bottom of this post. The previous winners of the European Chess Championships are as follows: 2000: Natalia Zhukova 2001: Almira Skripchenko 2002: Antoaneta Stefanova 2003: Pia Cramling 2004: Alexandra Kosteniuk 2005: Kateryna Lahno 2006: Ekaterina Atalik 2007: Tatiana Kosintseva 2008: Kateryna Lahno 2009: Tatiana Kosintseva 2010: Pia Cramling Below are a few tactical shots from Pia Cramling's games from this championship: Round 1. Sandu - Cramling. Black to move Round 3. Molchanova - Cramling. Black to move Round 4. Cramling - Zawadzka. White to move Round 9. Khurtsidze - Cramling. Black to move. By the way, did you know that Pia and I share the same birthday day - April 23 :-) Here is the full final table of the European Championship: Pour en savoir plus:Le site officiel - La Ronde 10 - La Ronde 11 2007-2010 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés Dans la section féminine, Viktorija Cmilyte conserve une demi longueur d'avance avec 8 points. A une ronde de la fin, la meilleure Française Marie Sebag est 4ème à 7,5 points. Tout reste encore possible pour une médaille. Pour en savoir plus:Le site officiel - La Ronde 10 - La Ronde 11 2007-2010 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés Dans la section féminine, la Polonaise Monika Socko abandonne également le leadership du tournoi au profit de Viktorija Cmilyte, qui mène seule avec 7,5 points. A deux rondes de la fin, la meilleure Française Marie Sebag est 9ème à 6,5 points. Tout reste encore possible pour une médaille. Pour en savoir plus:Le site officiel - La Ronde 9 - La Ronde 10 2007-2010 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés Rk. Name FED RtgI Pts. TB1 TB2 TB3 Rp n w we w-we K rtg+/- 1 GM Cramling Pia SWE 2523 9,0 0 61,5 74,5 2677 11 9 7,07 1,93 10 19,3 2 IM Cmilyte Viktorija LTU 2485 8,5 0 59,5 73,5 2622 11 8,5 6,56 1,94 10 19,4 3 GM Socko Monika POL 2465 8,0 1 63,5 77,5 2595 11 8 6,16 1,84 10 18,4 4 GM Sebag Marie FRA 2506 8,0 2 60,5 73,5 2555 11 8 7,34 0,66 10 6,6 5 GM Kosintseva Tatiana RUS 2524 8,0 3 63,0 76,0 2595 11 8 7,01 0,99 10 9,9 6 WGM Zhukova Natalia UKR 2492 8,0 4 60,5 72,5 2556 11 8 7,13 0,87 10 8,7 7 IM Dembo Yelena GRE 2457 8,0 5 57,0 69,5 2545 11 8 6,73 1,27 10 12,7 8 GM Stefanova Antoaneta BUL 2555 7,5 0 65,5 80,5 2552 11 7,5 7,42 0,08 10 0,8 9 IM Muzychuk Anna SLO 2533 7,5 0 63,5 77,0 2550 11 7,5 7,18 0,32 10 3,2 10 IM Kosintseva Nadezhda RUS 2554 7,5 0 61,0 74,5 2540 11 7,5 7,63 -0,13 10 -1,3 11 IM Muzychuk Mariya UKR 2444 7,5 0 61,0 74,5 2550 11 7,5 5,87 1,63 10 16,3 12 IM Khurtsidze Nino GEO 2434 7,5 0 60,5 74,0 2526 11 7,5 6,06 1,44 10 14,4 13 IM Skripchenko Almira FRA 2456 7,5 0 60,0 73,5 2514 11 7,5 6,59 0,91 10 9,1 14 IM Ushenina Anna UKR 2452 7,5 0 58,0 70,5 2511 11 7,5 6,58 0,92 10 9,2 15 IM Rajlich Iweta POL 2459 7,5 0 56,5 70,0 2477 11 7,5 7,16 0,34 10 3,4 16 WFM Ziaziulkina Nastassia BLR 2188 7,5 0 56,5 69,0 2543 11 7,5 2,48 5,02 15 75,3 17 IM Kovalevskaya Ekaterina RUS 2438 7,5 0 53,0 66,0 2457 11 7,5 7,12 0,38 10 3,8 18 WGM Zawadzka Jolanta POL 2404 7,0 0 64,5 77,5 2478 11 7 5,88 1,12 10 11,2 19 GM Hoang Thanh Trang HUN 2487 7,0 0 61,5 74,5 2442 11 7 7,55 -0,55 10 -5,5 20 IM Moser Eva AUT 2437 7,0 0 60,5 73,5 2517 11 7 5,79 1,21 10 12,1 21 IM Romanko Marina RUS 2409 7,0 0 59,5 72,0 2488 11 7 5,81 1,19 10 11,9 22 IM Gvetadze Sopio GEO 2342 7,0 0 57,5 69,5 2485 11 7 4,89 2,11 10 21,1 23 WGM Savina Anastasia RUS 2391 7,0 0 56,5 69,5 2484 11 7 5,63 1,37 10 13,7 24 WFM Gunina Valentina RUS 2457 7,0 0 56,5 69,0 2415 11 7 7,59 -0,59 10 -5,9 25 GM Dzagnidze Nana GEO 2479 7,0 0 55,5 67,0 2472 11 7 7,11 -0,11 10 -1,1 26 WGM Bodnaruk Anastasia RUS 2384 7,0 0 55,5 65,0 2351 10 6 5,42 0,58 15 8,7 27 IM Gaponenko Inna UKR 2472 7,0 0 54,5 66,5 2415 11 7 7,81 -0,81 10 -8,1 28 IM Paehtz Elisabeth GER 2486 7,0 0 53,5 64,5 2397 11 7 8,20 -1,20 10 -12,0 29 WGM Galojan Lilit ARM 2380 6,5 0 61,5 74,0 2473 11 6,5 5,05 1,45 15 21,8 30 WGM Guramishvili Sopiko GEO 2266 6,5 0 59,5 71,5 2467 11 6,5 3,57 2,93 15 44,0 31 WGM Nebolsina Vera RUS 2310 6,5 0 58,5 70,0 2436 11 6,5 4,56 1,94 15 29,1 32 IM Sedina Elena ITA 2334 6,5 0 58,0 70,5 2468 11 6,5 4,47 2,03 10 20,3 33 WIM Schneider Veronika HUN 2314 6,5 0 56,5 68,5 2423 11 6,5 4,86 1,64 15 24,6 34 WGM Cosma Elena-Luminita ROU 2346 6,5 0 55,0 68,0 2403 11 6,5 5,64 0,86 10 8,6 35 IM Danielian Elina ARM 2491 6,5 0 54,5 66,0 2387 11 6,5 7,92 -1,42 10 -14,2 36 IM Melia Salome GEO 2467 6,5 0 54,5 65,5 2369 11 6,5 7,82 -1,32 10 -13,2 37 WIM Molchanova Tatjana RUS 2369 6,5 0 54,0 67,0 2398 11 6,5 6,03 0,47 15 7,1 38 WGM Girya Olga RUS 2362 6,5 0 54,0 66,0 2373 11 6,5 6,31 0,19 15 2,8 39 GM Peng Zhaoqin NED 2401 6,5 0 53,5 65,5 2411 11 6,5 6,33 0,17 10 1,7 40 WGM Manakova Maria SRB 2315 6,5 0 53,0 63,5 2391 11 6,5 5,31 1,19 15 17,9 41 WGM Charkhalashvili Inga GEO 2338 6,5 0 52,5 64,5 2399 11 6,5 5,57 0,93 15 13,9 42 WGM Kashlinskaya Alina RUS 2332 6,5 0 51,5 64,5 2399 10 6,5 5,59 0,91 15 13,6 43 WGM Kovanova Baira RUS 2385 6,5 0 51,5 63,5 2358 11 6,5 6,83 -0,33 10 -3,3 44 WGM Vega Gutierrez Sabrina ESP 2314 6,5 0 51,5 63,0 2374 11 6,5 5,60 0,90 15 13,5 45 IM Khotenashvili Bela GEO 2448 6,5 0 50,5 61,5 2334 11 6,5 8,05 -1,55 10 -15,5 46 WGM Zdebskaja Natalia UKR 2390 6,5 0 50,5 61,0 2339 11 6,5 7,22 -0,72 10 -7,2 47 WGM Kochetkova Julia RUS 2313 6,5 0 48,5 59,5 2345 11 6,5 5,98 0,52 15 7,8 48 GM Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan SCO 2447 6,0 0 64,5 78,0 2457 11 6 5,86 0,14 10 1,4 49 IM Matveeva Svetlana RUS 2373 6,0 0 59,0 71,5 2434 11 6 5,12 0,88 10 8,8 50 IM Javakhishvili Lela GEO 2500 6,0 0 58,0 69,5 2369 11 6 7,83 -1,83 10 -18,3 51 WGM Chelushkina Irina SRB 2319 6,0 0 57,5 69,5 2411 11 6 4,67 1,33 10 13,3 52 WGM Kursova Maria RUS 2296 6,0 0 53,5 63,5 2317 11 6 5,18 0,82 15 12,3 53 WGM Doluhanova Evgeniya UKR 2297 6,0 0 53,5 63,5 2340 11 6 5,02 0,98 15 14,7 54 WIM Arabidze Meri GEO 2292 6,0 0 53,0 65,0 2391 11 6 4,62 1,38 15 20,7 55 IM Mkrtchian Lilit ARM 2503 6,0 0 53,0 64,5 2313 11 6 8,59 -2,59 10 -25,9 56 WIM Schut Lisa NED 2224 6,0 0 53,0 63,0 2343 11 6 4,28 1,72 15 25,8 57 WGM Vojinovic Jovana MNE 2296 6,0 0 51,0 61,5 2262 10 5 4,57 0,43 15 6,4 58 WIM Franciskovic Borka CRO 2245 6,0 0 51,0 61,0 2305 11 6 4,71 1,29 15 19,4 59 IM Milliet Sophie FRA 2391 6,0 0 50,5 61,0 2300 11 6 7,39 -1,39 10 -13,9 60 IM Foisor Cristina-Adela ROU 2433 6,0 0 50,0 63,0 2320 11 6 7,63 -1,63 10 -16,3 61 WGM Przezdziecka Marta POL 2254 6,0 0 50,0 62,0 2363 11 6 4,41 1,59 15 23,9 62 WGM Majdan Joanna POL 2364 6,0 0 50,0 61,5 2345 11 6 6,32 -0,32 15 -4,8 WIM Tarasova Viktoriya RUS 2261 6,0 0 50,0 61,5 2379 11 6 4,31 1,69 15 25,4 64 WIM Danelia Mariam GEO 2199 6,0 0 49,5 59,5 2302 11 6 4,29 1,71 15 25,6 65 WGM Kostiuk Tatiana UKR 2294 6,0 0 49,5 59,0 2234 10 5 4,96 0,04 15 0,6 66 IM Vasilevich Tatjana UKR 2414 6,0 0 48,5 59,5 2301 11 6 7,56 -1,56 10 -15,6 67 IM Lomineishvili Maia GEO 2385 6,0 0 47,5 58,0 2286 11 6 7,47 -1,47 10 -14,7 68 WGM Aginian Nelly ARM 2296 6,0 0 47,0 57,0 2243 11 6 6,43 -0,43 15 -6,4 69 WIM Solic Kristina CRO 2192 6,0 0 45,5 55,5 2333 11 6 3,97 2,03 15 30,5 70 WIM Videnova Iva BUL 2258 6,0 0 43,0 52,5 2262 11 6 5,91 0,09 15 1,4 71 WIM Severiukhina Zoja RUS 2355 6,0 0 41,5 52,0 2123 11 6 8,27 -2,27 15 -34,0 72 WGM Berend Elvira LUX 2299 5,5 0 58,5 70,0 2317 11 5,5 4,91 0,59 15 8,9 73 IM Purtseladze Maka GEO 2299 5,5 0 57,5 68,5 2366 11 5,5 4,33 1,17 15 17,5 74 WGM Melnikova Yana RUS 2272 5,5 0 56,5 68,5 2349 11 5,5 4,41 1,09 15 16,4 75 WGM Kadziolka Beata POL 2311 5,5 0 53,5 65,0 2335 11 5,5 5,12 0,38 15 5,7 WIM Dolzhykova Kateryna UKR 2290 5,5 0 53,5 65,0 2335 11 5,5 4,86 0,64 15 9,6 77 WIM Sikorova Olga CZE 2256 5,5 0 53,0 64,5 2288 11 5,5 4,74 0,76 15 11,4 WIM Worek Joanna POL 2245 5,5 0 53,0 64,5 2346 11 5,5 4,01 1,49 15 22,4 79 WFM Lomako Anna RUS 2258 5,5 0 52,5 63,5 2298 11 5,5 4,61 0,89 15 13,4 80 Papp Petra HUN 2263 5,5 0 52,5 62,5 2233 10 4,5 4,01 0,49 15 7,3 81 IM Bojkovic Natasa SRB 2384   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/03/pia-cramling-womens-european-champion.html Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:37:00 +0000       Nepomniachtchi & Cramling European Champions After many draws in the penultimate round, Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia) defeated Vladimir Akopian (Armenia) in the last round and won the gold medal at the European Championship in Rijeka. The women’s section was won by Swedish GM Pia Cramling, who beat Viktorija Cmilyte (Lithuania) in the last round. The 11th European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship is held from 5th to 19th of March 2010 in Rijeka, in new Zamet Centre sports hall. The event is organized by chess club “Rijeka”, in agreement with the Croatian Chess Federation under the auspices of the City of Rijeka and the European Chess Union. It is open to all players representing the chess federations which comprise the European Chess Union (FIDE zones 1.1 to 1.9) regardless of their title or rating. There is also no limit of participants per federation. The championship is an 11-round Swiss in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules and FIDE Rules of Chess. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. As always, the European Championship is a qualification event for the next World Cup. According to FIDE regulations and the decision of the ECU Board, 22 players will qualify. Rounds 10-11 With draws on the first seven boards in round 10, nothing changed in the top of the standings in Rijeka. Ian Nepomnaichtchi went into the final round in sole lead, and no less than seven GMs were chasing him with half a point less. Some GMs in Nice expected the last round’s top game Nepomniachtchi-Akopian to quickly end in a draw (since both would be sure of a good prize and qualification for the World Cup) but that’s not what happened. Nepomniachtchi-Akopian Position after 23.Rec1 Black played the somewhat passive 23…Bf8?! (perhaps it was time for 23…f5!?) and after 24.b5 axb5 25.Qxb5 Rb8 26.Qa4 White’s passed a-pawn became too strong. Pia Cramling had a very strong finish, drawing with Socko and then beating Khurtsidze, Stefanova and Cmilyte in rounds 8-11. The decisive game went like this: Cramling-Cmilyte Position after 24.Ne4 The ending is about equal, but might become slightly more difficult for White when Black manages to activate her majority on the queenside. 24…Bd5?! Better was 24…Nd4 25.Nc5 Bc8. 25.Nc5 Bxg2 26.Nxg2 a5 27.Ne3 (27.Rxd8 Rxd8 28.a4! was perhaps even stronger) 27…a4 28.Nd7! Rh8 29.Rd6 and White’s activity soon yielded a pawn, and eventually the game. And so for the gold medals in both sections no tiebreak is needed. In the women’s section the silver medal goes to Viktorija Cmilyte, who was the only one to score 8.5/11. Thursday tiebreaks will be played to establish the silver and bronze medal in the open section, the bronze medal in the women’s section and to establish the qualifiers for the World Cup. European Championship 2010 | Round 11 Standings (top 40) European Championship 2010 | Women section | Round 11 Standings (top 30) Full standings here Selection of games rounds 10-11 Game viewer by ChessTempo Photo courtesy of the official website, more here Links Official website All details and statistics Games in PGN: Men | Women via TWIC   http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/nepomniachtchi-cramling-european-champions/ Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:50:09 +0000       Nepomniachtchi and Cmilyte lead in Rijeka With two rounds to go, Ian Nepomniachtchi is in sole lead at the European Individual Championship. The Russian GM scored 7.5/9. In the women’s section Viktorija Cmilyte leads with the same score. The 11th European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship is held from 5th to 19th of March 2010 in Rijeka, in new Zamet Centre sports hall. The event is organized by chess club “Rijeka”, in agreement with the Croatian Chess Federation under the auspices of the City of Rijeka and the European Chess Union. It is open to all players representing the chess federations which comprise the European Chess Union (FIDE zones 1.1 to 1.9) regardless of their title or rating. There is also no limit of participants per federation. The championship is an 11-round Swiss in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules and FIDE Rules of Chess. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. As always, the European Championship is a qualification event for the next World Cup. According to FIDE regulations and the decision of the ECU Board, 22 players will qualify. Rounds 8-9 Baadur Jobava continued strongly in round 8, with a nice victory over Hungarian GM Zoltan Almasi. Jobava-Almasi Position after 15…bxc5 Georgia’s number one comes with an impressive, positional pawn sacrifice: 16.b4!? cxb4 17.axb4 Qxb4 18.Rfb1 Qe7 19.Nd4 g6 20.Bxe4 dxe4 21.Qb3 and White had a long-term initiative. Almasi defended well, until he erred in the rook ending with 36…f4, where 36…Kf8 might have saved the game. The other leader after 7 rounds, Ukrainian Zahar Efimenko, drew relatively quickly with Armenian grandmaster Vladimir Akopian. Ivan Sokolov and Ian Nepomniachtchi won their games and joined Efimenko at second place. The Russian GM did it with a nice sacrifice: Nepomniachtchi-Inarkiev Position after 32…Rb6 Do you see it? 33.Nxf7! Wham! 33…Kxf7 34.exd5 cxd5 35.Rc7 and Black had to give his queen with 35…Rd7, but it didn’t help. Another pretty game from round 8 was the folllowing. Svetushkin-Landa Position after 12…Qxb2 White had answered the move 11…Qb4 with the strong 12.c4! which means he probably was already intending his next move, again proving that “it’s never good to take on b2″. 13.cxd5! Nc3 14.dxe6!! Nxd1 15.exd7+ Kd8 16.Raxd1 and the two pieces and the pawn on d7 which kept the king in the centre were more than enough compensation for the queen. Yesterday, on the top board of round 9, Ian Nepomniachtchi grabbed sole lead: Nepomniachtchi-Jobava Position after 23…Re8 Another White game for Nepomniachtchi, and another inspired attack that brings quick victory: 24.e6! Nxe1 25.Rxe1 fxe6 26.Rxe6 Kh8 27.h3 Rxe6 28.Bxe6 Bb5 29.f5! Qe8 30.f6 Qf8 31.f7 and Black resigned. The Championship will see two more rounds, today and tomorrow. 22 players will qualify for the next World Cup. Tiebreaks will be played on Thursday to establish the Champion, to establish the medal winners and to establish qualifiers for the World Cup. European Championship 2010 | Round 9 Standings (top 40) Full standings here Selection of games rounds 8-9 Game viewer by ChessTempo Ian Nepomniachtchi (2656, Russia) leads the European Individual Champioship with a score of 7.5/9. His perfomance rating is 2864. Viktorija Cmilyte (2485, Lithuania) leads the Women's section, also with a score of 7.5/9 and with a perfomance rating of 2658. Photos courtesy of the official website, more here Links Official website All details and statistics Games in PGN: Men | Women via TWIC   http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/nepomniachtchi-and-cmilyte-lead-in-rijeka/ Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:45:28 +0000       The European Champions: Pia Cramling and Ian Nepomniachtchi Ian Nepomniachtchi from Russia and Pia Cramling from Sweden are the new European Chess Champions. In the last, 11th round, the 20-year old Russian Grandmaster defeated Vladimir Akopjan from Armenia to complete his excellent score of 7 wins and 4 draws, earning 9 points and over 25 rating points. It was just a confirmation of his total dominance at the Center Zamet and yet another title in his splendid career, beginning with the first gold as a 10 year-old and followed by many medals from the World and European Championships. Second place is shared by Baadur Jobava (GEO) and Timofeev Artyom (RUS) so tomorrow they will play for the bronze and silver medal. Seven players with 8 points are directly qualified for the World Cup: Lysyj, Efimenko, Almasi, Tomashevski, Rodshtein, Pashikian and Salgado Lopez. The remaining 13 players will be determined by the playoffs in which there will be 28 players who finished the Championship with 7.5 points. Today's round at the women's tournament was very interesting, namely, the new European Champion, Swedish Pia Cramling, inflicted the first defeat to Victoria Cmilyte (LTU), and so that was enough for winning the title in Rijeka. This is the second title of Europan Champion for Pia, who recorded 8 wins with 2 draws and 1 defeat at this Championship. She managed to collect 9 points and to improve her rating for 19 points. Viktorija Cmilyte won the silver with 8,5 points, while the owner of the bronze is still unknown thus there are five players with 8 points: Monika Socko, Maire Sebag, Tatiana Kosintseva, Natalia Zhukova and Yelena Dembo. All these players qualified for the World Cup, and seven other travelers will be known after the playoffs at which 10 players with 7,5 points will participate. For tomorrow, March 18th, the tie-breaks for the medals and the placement at the World Cup are scheduled. The two qualifying rounds will start at 10am and 1pm, while the final matches will start at 4.30pm. Eighth round Official website Pia Cramling Ian Nepomniachtchi receiving congratulations   http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/4419--the-european-champions-pia-cramling-and-ian-nepomniachtchi.html Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:08:07 +0000       Rijeka: Nepomniachtchi, Cramling European champions The European Championship ended on a bang, not a whisper, with great games on the top boards. Open section leader 20-year-old Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi was victorious against Armenian GM Vladimir Akopian. He took the title alone and with a 2868 performance. Swedish GM Pia Cramling defeated IM Viktorija Cmilyte to become Women's champion. Final report.   http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6195 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT       Top Scorers In The Women's Section of Rijeka (After seven Rounds) # Ti. Name FED RtgI Pts. TB1 TB2 TB3 Rp 1 GM Socko Monika POL 2465 6.0 22.0 30.5 5 2694 2 GM Stefanova Antoaneta BUL 2555 5.5 24.0 33.5 4 2614 3 GM Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan SCO 2447 5.5 24.0 32.5 5 2663 4 IM Cmilyte Viktorija LTU 2485 5.5 21.5 30.0 4 2595 5 WGM Galojan Lilit ARM 2380 5.5 21.0 29.0 4 2589 6 GM Cramling Pia SWE 2523 5.5 21.0 28.5 5 2605 7 IM Dembo Yelena GRE 2457 5.5 17.5 25.0 4 2537 8 GM Kosintseva Tatiana RUS 2524 5.0 23.5 32.5 4 2570 9 IM Muzychuk Anna SLO 2533 5.0 22.0 31.5 3 2556 10 GM Sebag Marie FRA 2506 5.0 22.0 30.0 3 2507 11 IM Muzychuk Mariya UKR 2444 5.0 21.5 30.5 3 2561 12 WGM Zhukova Natalia UKR 2492 5.0 21.5 29.5 3 2500 13 IM Khurtsidze Nino GEO 2434 5.0 21.5 29.0 3 2523 14 IM Rajlich Iweta POL 2459 5.0 21.0 29.5 3 2484   http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Chessvine/~3/kaA65I1bIf0/753-Top-Scorers-In-The-Womens-Section-of-Rijeka-After-seven-Rounds.html       Echecs à Rijeka : l'or pour Nepomniachtchi et Cramling En remportant sa partie face à Vladimir Akopian, lors de la dernière ronde des 11èmes championnats individuels d'Europe d'échecs, le Russe Ian Nepomniachtchi s'adjuge le titre avec 9 points sur 11. Pas de qualifiés français chez les hommes pour le championnat du monde. Même résultat à 9 points sur 11 pour la suédoise Pia Cramling qui décroche le titre féminin en allant chercher la victoire à l'ultime ronde face à Viktorija Cmilyte. En terminant aux 5e et 13e places, Marie Sebag (8/11) et Almira Skripchenko (7,5/11) gagnent leur billet pour le championnat du monde.   http://www.chess-and-strategy.com/2010/03/echecs-rijeka-ian-nepomniachtchi.html Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:30:00 +0000       Echecs à Rijeka : le finish en Live à 15h30 Statu quo hier au classement des 11èmes championnats individuels d'Europe d'échecs. Dans la section masculine, le Russe Ian Nepomniachtchi se maintient en tête du tournoi avec 8 points. Côté Français, le meilleur tricolore, Laurent Fressinet pointe à la 11ème position avec 7 points sur 10. Après sa 8ème nulle consécutive ronde 9, Etienne Bacrot a jeté l'éponge et abandonné le tournoi.   http://www.chess-and-strategy.com/2010/03/echecs-rijeka-le-finish-en-live-15h30.html Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:38:00 +0000       Women's Chess shines all around the world Hello everybody! The last round of the European Chess Championship just started. You can see the very first moves of the games on the image above. The winner will be decided in the direct encounter between Pia Cramling and Viktorija Cmilyte. While we are waiting for the final result of this exciting tournament, let me tell you some news about women's tournaments around the world. From March 3 to March 14, 2010, Iranian Chess Championship Finals for Men and Women took place. In the women's final the 16-years old WFM Ghazal Hakimifard defended the lead and eventually won the women championship by collecting 10 points from twelve games. The winners of the Iranian women's chess championship 2010. Last year champion WGM Atousa Pourkashian finished second with 8.5. The full reports with photos and results can be found on chessdom.com. I visited Iran in August 2001 and played with the best girls of the country. Since women in Iran can officially participate only in very limited number of sports and chess is one of such sport, chess is very popular among women and girls. The women's Iranian team on the Olympiad 2006 in Torino. I faced Iranian girls also at the very top level competition, for example, in the Women's World Chess Championship in Nalchik in 2008 where I played against Atousa Pourkashian in the first round. As the web-site The Week in Chess reports from March 8 to March 14, 2010 the Parachute Advansed International took place in Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh. Organised by GM Niaz Murshed of organisation Six Seasons Chess Tornaments. Manisha Mohanty Kiran was the convincing winner by a point and a half on 7/9. That's nice to see so many women's tournaments played all around the world. If you know about a women's tournament in your country or your community and would like to share it with the world, write me an email with your article and photos. I'm sure that if we all unite our efforts in making chess and women's chess more popular we will succeed! Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/03/womens-chess-shines-all-around-world.html Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:30:00 +0000       Cmilyte leads Euro 2 rounds left Hello everybody! In the Women's European Individual Chess Championship 2010 that is being played these days in Rijeka, Croatia Viktorija Cmilyte won today's game against Monika Socko to take the sole lead in the tournament. [Event "11th EICC Women"] [Site "Rijeka CRO"] [Date "2010.3.15"] [Round "9"] [White "Socko,M"] [Black "Cmilyte,V"] [Result "0-1"] [Eco "C63"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Here Viktorija opted for the Schliemann Defence (Jaenisch Gambit) 3. ... f5!? 4.d3 fxe4 5.dxe4 Nf6 6.O-O Bc5 7.Bxc6 bxc6 8.Nxe5 O-O 9.Bg5 Qe8 10.Bxf6 Rxf6 11.Nd3 Bd4 12.c3 Bb6 13.Nd2 d5 14.e5 Rf8 15.Kh1 ( The game between Hernandez Hol 2287 - Gomez F 2462 , 2001 Holguin 82/(300) continued with 15.Qe2 Bf5 16.Ne1 Qg6 17.Kh1 Rae8 18.b4 c5 with compensation for the sacrificed pawn) 15. ... Qg6 16.Nb3 Ba6 17.Nbc1 Rf5 18.Qd2 Raf8 19.a4 Rh5 20.Re1 Here Cmilyte found the very strong continuation - 20. ... Rff5! with the threat to play 21. ... Qg3!! and then after 22. fxg3 Rxh2+ and Rh5#. That's why Monika replied with 21. h3 ( If 21.a5 then 21. ... Qg3 !! 22. fxg3 Rxh2! 23. Kxh2 Rh5# ) The position before the 21st move of Black. But Cmilyte continued the attack with the brilliant 21. ... Rf3! and soon was able to win the game 22.Nf4 Qh6 23.gxf3 Rxh3+ 24.Nxh3 Qxh3+ 25.Kg1 Qg3+ 26.Kh1 Bxf2 27.Qxf2 Qxf2 28.Nb3 Qxf3+ 29.Kg1 Be2 30.Nd4 Qg3+ 31.Kh1 Bd3 32.e6 Be4+ 33.Rxe4 dxe4 34.Rf1 Qh4+ 35.Kg2 Qg5+ 36.Kh3 e3 37.b4 c5 38.bxc5 Qxc5 39.Kg2 g6 40.Rf3 Qe5 41.Nc2 e2 42.Kf2 Qxe6 43.Ke1 Qe4 0-1 So after the 9th round, Viktorija Cmilyte is in clear first place with 7,5 points out of 9, followed closely by Anna Muzychuk, Antoaneta Stefanova and Pia Cramling, all with 7 points. There are 2 more rounds to go and we can be sure to see some exciting games. The game live can be found on the official web-site fo the organizers, here. Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/03/cmilyte-leads-euro-2-rounds-left.html Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:13:00 +0000       Echecs à Rijeka : Nepomniachtchi et Cmilyte en tête Double coup de théâtre lors de la 9ème ronde des 11èmes championnats individuels d'Europe d'échecs. Dans la section masculine, le Russe Ian Nepomniachtchi défait le précédent leader Baadur Jobava, et passe en tête du tournoi avec 7,5 points. Côté Français, le meilleur tricolore, Laurent Fressinet pointe à la 12ème position avec 6,5 points sur 9.   http://www.chess-and-strategy.com/2010/03/echecs-rijeka-nepomniachtchi-et-cmilyte.html Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:10:00 +0000       Rijeka: Nepomniachtchi, Cmilyte take the sole lead Tournament leader Baadur Jobava beat top seed Zoltan Almasi, but then lost to 20-year-old Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, who is now in the sole lead. In the women's section Polish GM Monika Socko lost her game and the lead to Lithuanian IM Viktorija Cmilyte. There are some interesting news tidbits from Silvio Danailov in the Europe Echecs video interviews by GM Robert Fontaine.   http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6188 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT       European Individual Chess Championship - Round 9 - Nepomniachtchi and Cmilyte take over the helm Ian Nepomniachtchi used an original opening system in the ninth round game against the leader Baadur Jobava and claimed a win after 30 moves of sharp struggle, thus taking over the pole position in the race for title, with two rounds to go. In the women's championship, IM Viktorija Cmilyte pulls another crucial victory, with black pieces against the then co-leader Monika Socko.   http://tournaments.chessdom.com/news-2010/european-chess-championship-r9 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:54:56 +0100       European Individual Chess Championship 2010 The 11th European individual men and women's chess championship is taking place from 5th to 19th of March 2010 in Rijeka, Croatia. The tournaments are qualifiers for the next World Cup, part of the World Championship cycle. According to FIDE regulations and the decision of the ECU Board, 22 players will qualify. Prize fund is 150.000,00 EUR for the men section and 75,000.00 EUR for the women. Baadur Jobava from Georgia continues his impressive run and with the 8th round victory against the top-seeded Zoltan Almasi he singled out on the top with 7 points. Zahar Efimenko remained half a point behind after a draw versus Vladimir Akopian. Ian Nepomniachtchi beat his compatriot Ernesto Inarkiev, while Bosnian GM Ivan Sokolov tackled another Russian contender, Alexander Riazantsev. Nepomniachtchi and Sokolov are sharing the second place with Efimenko. Top round nine matches are Ian Nepomniachtchi - Baadur Jobava, Ivan Sokolov - Zahar Efimenko and Vladimir Akopian - Bojan Vuckovic. In the women championship, IM Viktorija Cmilyte (LTU 2485) scored an important victory against GM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (SCO 2447), and joined GM Monika Socko (POL 2465) on the tied first place, with 6.5 points each. In a fighting round, IM Muzychuk Anna (SLO 2533), GM Kosintseva Tatiana (RUS 2524), IM Khurtsidze Nino (GEO 2434), GM Hoang Thanh Trang (HUN 2487) and WGM Natalia Zhukova (UKR 2492) used the chance to sign wins and move ahead to the shared third place, half a point behind the leaders. Full results can be found on the official website. The games are starting at 15:30 with live relay of the top 60 boards. In addition, there is live video coverage that features multiple web cameras that focus on top boards, as well as general views of the playing hall, showing players, spectators, and guests. As the games progress, the remaining interesting positions and battles are featured. ECU President Boris Kutin with agile Rijeka organisers Ivan Mandekic and Srdjan Zelenika Baadur Jobava is obviously pleased with his play   http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/4412-european-individual-chess-championship-2010.html Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:48:02 +0000       11th European Individual Chess Champ. r-8 Men, round 8: Jobava Baadur (GEO)took the sole lead with 7 points. Women, round 8 : Socko Monika (POL) and Cmilyte Viktorija (LTU) share the lead with 6,5 points.   http://www.usefulchess.com/others/chess_news.html#euroindivid Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:46:00 +0200       European Individual Chess Championship 2010 The 11th European individual men and women's chess championship is taking place from 5th to 19th of March 2010 in Rijeka, Croatia. The tournaments are qualifiers for the next World Cup, part of the World Championship cycle. According to FIDE regulations and the decision of the ECU Board, 22 players will qualify. Prize fund is 150.000,00 EUR for the men section and 75,000.00 EUR for the women. After seven rounds, GM Monika Socko (POL 2465) with six points is a sole leader in the women championship. She drew with WGM Lilit Galojan of Armenia and is set to meet the legendary GM Pia Cramling in round eight. GM Stefanova Antoaneta (BUL 2555), GM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (SCO 2447), IM Viktorija Cmilyte (LTU 2485), WGM Lilit Galojan (ARM 2380), GM Pia Cramling (SWE 2523) and IM Yelena Dembo (GRE 2457) are half a point behind Socko. In the men section, Baadur Jobava (GEO 2695) and Zahar Efimenko (UKR 2640) both drew, against Alexander Riazantsev (RUS 2660) and Bojan Vuckovic (SRB 2630) respectively, and maintained joint lead with six points each. Top eight boards were drawn in round seven, maintaining the order on front end of the crosstable. Ivan Sokolov (BIH 2638), Vladimir Akopian (ARM 2688), Ernesto Inarkiev (RUS 2667) and Denis Khismatullin (RUS 2657) leaped forward to the shared third place. Full results can be found on the official website. The games are starting at 15:30 with live relay of the top 60 boards. In addition, there is live video coverage that features multiple web cameras that focus on top boards, as well as general views of the playing hall, showing players, spectators, and guests. As the games progress, the remaining interesting positions and battles are featured. Finally, GM Miso Cebalo is conducting interviews with the top seeded players. The arbiters in group photo Players in action   http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/4410-european-individual-chess-championship-2010.html Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:15:19 +0000       Today's Stars - Jovanka Eric and Monica Socko The first move on the board of the future winner of the 8th of March Women's Chess Tournament Hello everybody! Jovana Eric (on the photo below) is the winner of the 42nd annual 8th of March Women's Grandmasters Tournament that took place from March 3 to March 12, 2010 in Belgrade, Serbia. Margarita Voiska scored the same number of points as the winner - 6,5 but was second on tie-breaks. The bronze went to Grabuzova Tatiana from Russia. Here are two nice wins by the winner: White just played 14. Kh1, what is the best move for Black? [Event "42nd WGM"] [Site "Belgrade SRB"] [Date "2010.3.4"] [Round "2"] [White "Petrenko,S"] [Black "Eric,J"] [Result "0-1"] [Eco "B92"] [Annotator ""] [Source ""] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.O-O O-O 9.f4 b5 10.Bf3 Bb7 11.a3 Nbd7 12.f5 Qc7 13.Qe2 Nc5 14.Kh1 Na4 15.Nd1 d5 16.Nf2 Rac8 17.c3 Qc4 18.Na5 Qxe2 19.Bxe2 Ba8 20.exd5 Bxd5 21.Bd1 Bd8 22.Nb3 Bb6 23.Nd2 e4 24.Nh3 e3 25.Nf3 Bc4 26.Re1 Ng4 27.b3 Nf2+ 28.Nxf2 exf2 29.bxc4 fxe1=Q+ 30.Nxe1 Nxc3 31.Bf3 Rxc4 32.Nc2 Ne2 33.Be3 Bxe3 34.Nxe3 Rc1+ 35.Rxc1 Nxc1 36.g4 Nd3 37.Nd5 Ne5 38.Be2 Rd8 0-1 Black just played 9. ... h6, what is the best continuation for White? [Event "42nd WGM"] [Site "Belgrade SRB"] [Date "2010.3.8"] [Round "6"] [White "Eric,J"] [Black "Petrovic,Mari"] [Result "1-0"] [Eco "B06"] 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c6 4.Be3 d6 5.Qd2 Nd7 6.Nf3 Qa5 7.Bd3 Ngf6 8.O-O Ng4 9.Bg5 h6 10.Bxe7 Qc7 11.Bh4 Ngf6 12.e5 Nh7 13.exd6 Qb8 14.Qe3+ Kf8 15.Qe7+ Kg8 16.Bxg6 1-0 The European Women's Individual Chess Championship 2010 is in full blossom right now. 7 rounds have been played so far and Monica Socko (on the photo below playing White against Tatiana Kosintseva) is in the lead with 6 points out of 7. She is followed by Antoaneta Stefanova, Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Viktorija Cmilyte, Lilit Galojan, Pia Cramling and Yelena Dembo, all with 5,5 out of 7. Tomorrow, March 13, is a free day and on March 14 the tournament will continue with 4 more rounds to go. The shortest decisive game of the championship so far is the encounter between Aginian and Goslawska which lasted for only 16 moves: [Event "11th EICC Women"] [Site "Rijeka CRO"] [Date "2010.3.6"] [Round "1"] [White "Aginian,N"] [Black "Goslawska,C"] [Result "1-0"] [Eco "C66"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.c3 Be6? 5.d4 Bd7 6.O-O Nf6 7.Re1 g6 8.Nbd2 exd4? 9.cxd4 Bg7 10.e5 dxe5 11.dxe5 Nd5 12.Ne4 Nde7?? 13.Nf6+ Bxf6 14.exf6 Be6 15.Qxd8+ Rxd8 16.fxe7 1-0 The longest game has been the game between Baira Kovanova and Monica Socko which lasted for 129 moves: [Event "11th EICC Women"] [Site "Rijeka CRO"] [Date "2010.3.8"] [Round "3"] [White "Kovanova,B"] [Black "Socko,M"] [Result "0-1"] [Eco "B30"] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 e6 4.Bxc6 bxc6 5.O-O Ne7 6.d3 Ng6 7.Nc3 d5 8.b3 Bd6 9.Ba3 O-O 10.Re1 f6 11.Na4 Qe7 12.Qd2 Rb8 13.c4 e5 14.h3 Nf4 15.exd5 Qf7 16.Bxc5 Bxc5 17.Nxc5 Bxh3 18.g3 cxd5 19.d4 Qh5 20.Nh2 Rbd8 21.dxe5 fxe5 22.Qe3 Rde8 23.gxf4 Rxf4 24.Kh1 Bg4 25.Kg2 Ref8 26.Nd3 Bf3+ 27.Nxf3 Qg4+ 28.Kf1 Qh3+ 29.Ke2 Rxf3 30.Qxa7 Rxd3 31.Rg1 Qf3+ 32.Kf1 g6 33.Qb6 Qh3+ 34.Ke1 Qf5 35.cxd5 Rxd5 36.Rc1 Rd4 37.Rg2 Rh4 38.Rg1 Rh2 39.Rc2 Qxc2 40.Qe6+ Rf7 41.Qe8+ Kg7 42.Qxe5+ Rf6 43.Qe7+ Rf7 44.Qe5+ Kf8 45.Qb8+ Ke7 46.Qxh2 Qb1+ 47.Ke2 Qxa2+ 48.Kf1 Qb1+ 49.Kg2 Qe4+ 50.Kf1 Kf8 51.Qd6+ Re7 52.Qd1 Kf7 53.Qg4 Qd3+ 54.Kg2 Qxb3 55.Rc1 Qd5+ 56.Qf3+ Qxf3+ 57.Kxf3 h5 58.Kg3 Kf6 59.Rc5 Re5 60.Rc6+ Kf5 61.Rc8 Ra5 62.f3 Kg5 63.Rc4 Rf5 64.f4+ Kh6 65.Rc3 Rd5 66.Rb3 Kg7 67.Ra3 Kf6 68.Rb3 Kf5 69.Ra3 Ke4 70.Ra6 Rd3+ 71.Kg2 Kf5 72.Kh2 Rf3 73.Kg2 Rxf4 74.Kg3 Re4 75.Ra5+ Re5 76.Ra8 Re3+ 77.Kg2 g5 78.Ra2 g4 79.Ra8 h4 80.Rf8+ Ke4 81.Re8+ Kd3 82.Rg8 Rg3+ 83.Kf2 Rf3+ 84.Kg1 g3 85.Rh8 Rf4 86.Kg2 Ke3 87.Re8+ Re4 88.Rf8 Rd4 89.Kh3 Rf4 90.Ra8 Rd4 91.Re8+ Kf2 92.Rf8+ Ke3 93.Re8+ Kd3 94.Rg8 Re4 95.Rf8 Re1 96.Rd8+ Ke2 97.Kg2 Ke3 98.Re8+ Kd2 99.Rd8+ Kc3 100.Rc8+ Kd4 101.Rd8+ Kc5 102.Rd2 Re4 103.Kh3 Rd4 104.Re2 Kd5 105.Re8 Re4 106.Rd8+ Ke5 107.Re8+ Kf5 108.Ra8 Kf6 109.Ra2 Rf4 110.Ra6+ Kg5 111.Ra5+ Rf5 112.Ra4 Rf4 113.Ra5+ Kf6 114.Ra6+ Ke5 115.Ra5+ Kd6 116.Ra6+ Kc5 117.Ra2 Kb4 118.Re2 Kc3 119.Ra2 Rd4 120.Ra3+ Kd2 121.Ra8 Ke3 122.Re8+ Kf3 123.Rf8+ Rf4 124.Ra8 Kf2 125.Ra4 Rf3 126.Ra2+ Kg1 127.Ra1+ Rf1 128.Ra2 Kh1 129.Rg2 Rf2 0-1 If you want to watch the games interactively, the best way to do so is to COPY the moves (in the case above 1. e4 c5 etc.) and PASTE them in my PGN PLAYER, then you'll be able to play the games on-screen. Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com   http://www.chessblog.com/2010/03/todays-stars-jovanka-eric-and-monica.html Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:51:00 +0000       11? Campionato Europeo: diretta del IV turno Live Caruana - GM Potkin Femminile MI Cmityle - Sedina Si disputa oggi il quarto turno del Campionato Europeo. Scacchierando allestirà, per ogni turno, un articolo di rimando al sito ufficiale dove i lettori potranno commentare le partite. Per sapere cosa è successo nel terzo turno, clicca QUI GM Caruana, Fabiano (ITA, 2680) - GM Potkin, Vladimir (RUS, 2606)  Siciliana Scheveningen [Stefano Bellincampi/Megalovic]  1. e4 c5 2. Cf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Cxd4 Cc6 5. Cc3 a6 6. Ae3 Cf6 7. Ae2 d6 8. f4 Ad7 Fabiano, con posposizione di mosse, è rientrato in una Siciliana Scheveningen nella quale il nero sta ritardando - contrariamente al solito - lo sviluppo del lato di re. Infatti dopo 8..Ad7 Fabiano sta analizzando da un pò. 9. g4 E infatti parte l'attacco con 9.g4!. Secondo me ha giocato g4 perchè il cavallo nero non può andare in d7. E' vero che forse Potkin può giocare 9..Cxd4 e 10..Ac6, ma Fabiano vuole sfruttare l'ordine di mosse del nero 9..h6 Ora è chiaro che il nero non potrà arroccare corto, come del resto Fabiano, che immagino giocherà Dd2 e 0-0-0 10. h4 Dc7 11. Dd2 b5 12. a3 Ca5 a questo punto Caruana potrebbe decide di arroccare lungo o di accendere la miccia giocando 13. e5 13. e5 dxe5 14. fxe5 Dxe5 15. Af4 Dc5 16. b4 De7 17. bxa5 e5 18. Cdxb5 axb5 19. MI Cmilyte, Viktorija (LTU, 2485) - MI Sedina, Elena (ITA, 2334) difesa slava 1. Cf3 Cf6 2. c4 c6 3. d4 d5 4. Cc3 dxc4 5. a4 Af5 6. Ch4 Ac8 7. e3 e5 8. Axc4 exd4 9. exd4 De7+ 10. Ae2 Dc7 11.  Ag5 Cbd7 12. Dd2 Ad6 13. De3+ Rf8 14. Cf5 h6 15. Ah4 Cb6 16. Cxd6 Dxd6 17. De5   Tempo di Riflessione 90' x 40 mosse + 30' per terminare la partita + 30" di incremento per mossa a partire dalla prima mossa. Viktorija Cmilyte, l'avversaria di Elena Sedina Safarlj e Golod, gli avversari di Shytaj e Dvirnyy Ivan Cheparinov. Dopo un inizio non esaltante il bulgaro oggi affronterà Corrado Astengo IV turno, prime scacchiere 1 5 GM Vallejo Pons Francisco ESP 2708 3 3 GM Timofeev Artyom RUS 2655 36 2 37 GM Krasenkow Michal POL 2652 3 3 GM Jobava Baadur GEO 2695 10 3 11 GM Naiditsch Arkadij GER 2691 3 3 GM Efimenko Zahar UKR 2640 48 4 83 GM Pelletier Yannick SUI 2611 3 3 GM Inarkiev Ernesto RUS 2667 24 5 175 IM Skoberne Jure SLO 2509 3 3 GM Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter ROU 2661 28 Incontri degli italiani  8 15 GM Caruana Fabiano ITA 2680 2½ 2½ GM Potkin Vladimir RUS 2606 89 69 209 IM Shytaj Luca ITA 2472 2 2 GM Safarli Eltaj AZE 2606 90 76 219 IM Dvirnyy Daniyyl ITA 2450 2 2 GM Golod Vitali ISR 2590 102 128 33 GM Cheparinov Ivan BUL 2657 1 1½ Astengo Corrado ITA 2136 345 109 135 GM Godena Michele ITA 2561 1½ 1½ IM Kargin Arseny RUS 2400 256 114 149 GM Brkic Ante CRO 2543 1½ 1½ FM Bentivegna Francesco ITA 2361 276 151 251 IM Reutsky Sergei RUS 2404 1 1 Pantaleoni Claudio ITA 2179 336 155 257 Nedilko Vasily UKR 2400 1 1 FM Barlocco Carlo ITA 2173 337 161 274 IM Lanzani Mario ITA 2371 1 1 Neagos Raul-Alexandru ROU 2110 350 164 279 FM Valsecchi Alessio ITA 2360 1 1 Hetzer Volkhard GER 2091 355 134 312 Feher Adam HUN 2260 1 1 IM Brunello Sabino ITA 2476 205 138 320 Sgnaolin Davide ITA 2234 1 1 IM Vernay Clovis FRA 2440 224 145 328 Sheskin Matan ISR 2207 1 1 IM Piscopo Pierluigi ITA 2418 242 176 338 Kadric Denis BIH 2171 ½ ½ GM Ortega Lexy ITA 2479 203 Incontri delle italiane 8 13 IM Cmilyte Viktorija LTU 2485 2½ 2½ IM Sedina Elena ITA 2334 56 44 60 IM Zimina Olga ITA 2319 1½ 1½ WGM Przezdziecka Marta POL 2254 98 42 115 WIM Brunello Marina ITA 2217 1½ 1½ WGM Charkhalashvili Inga GEO 2338 54 72 118 WIM Kazimova Narmin AZE 2212 ½ ½ Brunello Roberta ITA 2043 143 74 144 Tonel Giulia ITA 2023 ½ 0 WGM Nemcova Katerina CZE 2264 89 Regolamento Calendario Il torneo si disputa sulla lunghezza di 11 turni (6-17 marzo). L'inizio delle partite è previsto per le ore 15:30. Unico giorno di riposo sabato 13 marzo. Il 18 marzo si svolgeranno gli eventuali Tie-breaks. Criteri di spareggio in caso di arrivo a pari merito sono previsti i seguenti criteri di spareggio tecnico: a)  Median-Buchholz 1 b)  Buchholz c)  Numero di vittorie  d) Punteggio Progressivo. Spareggi Rapid sono previsti gli spareggi (15'+10" per mossa) solo per stabilire: a)  il Campione Europeo b)  i vincitori di Medaglie c)  I qualificati (22) alla prossima World Cup. Tempo di Riflessione 90' x 40 mosse + 30' per terminare la partita + 30" di incremento per mossa a partire dalla prima mossa.  Siti Utili sito ufficiale Live Stream risultati su chessresult  articoli di presentazione di Angelmann   1^ parte  2^ parte  Report fotografico di Ruigino Tonel Visore   http://www.scacchierando.net/dblog/articolo.asp?articolo=1752 2010-03-09T14:30:00+01:00       11? Campionato Europeo Femminile Con Sedina, Zimina, le sorelle Brunello e Tonel! L?11? Campionato Europeo Individuale Femminile si preannuncia di altissimo livello. Infatti sono presenti cinque delle prime sette giocatrici europee, fatta eccezione per la n?1 mondiale Judit Polgar e la Campionessa Mondiale in carica Alexandra Kosteniuk. Tra l?altro nelle prime 10 posizioni della classifica mondiale ci sono solo due giocatrici extra-europee (l?indiana Humpy Koneru e la cinese Hou Yifan), quindi questo Campionato è sicuramente di valore assoluto. Ma partiamo dalle nostre rappresentanti, che sono cinque: MI Elena Sedina, Elo 2334 MI Olga Zimina, Elo 2319 MI Femminile Marina Brunello, Elo 2217 Roberta Brunello, Elo 2043 Giulia Tonel, Elo 2023 Ovviamente il loro compito è difficilissimo, considerando che, su ben? 165 giocatrici preiscritte, cioè?appena 3 in meno del record stabilito nella precedente edizione, disputata a San Pietroburgo (Russia), hanno numeri di tabellone variabili dal 58 della Sedina al 149 della Tonel. Di sicuro per le nostre sarà un'esperienza altamente formativa, perchè non capita?spesso di poter giocare 11 turni a questi livelli! ? Vediamo ora l?elenco delle Top-20 partecipanti, in ordine di Elo: 1 GM Stefanova Antoaneta BUL 2555 2 IM Kosintseva Nadezhda RUS 2554 3 IM Muzychuk Anna SLO 2533 4 GM Kosintseva Tatiana RUS 2524 5 GM Cramling Pia SWE 2523 6 GM Sebag Marie FRA 2506 7 IM Mkrtchian Lilit ARM 2503 8 IM Javakhishvili Lela GEO 2500 9 WGM Zhukova Natalia UKR 2492 10 IM Danielian Elina ARM 2491 11 GM Hoang Thanh Trang HUN 2487 12 IM Paehtz Elisabeth GER 2486 13 IM Cmilyte Viktorija LTU 2485 14 GM Dzagnidze Nana GEO 2479 15 IM Gaponenko Inna UKR 2472 16 IM Melia Salome GEO 2467 17 GM Socko Monika POL 2465 18 IM Rajlich Iweta POL 2459 19 IM Dembo Yelena GRE 2457 20 WFM Gunina Valentina RUS 2457 Antonaeta Stefanova, n? 4 mondiale e n?1 del tabellone la "slovena" Anna?Muzychuk, n? 3 del tabellone? Tatiana Kosintseva, vincitrice nel 2007 e nel 2009 In questo Campionato è molto difficile pronosticare il nome della vincitrice, considerando il fatto che tra la n?1 Stefanova e la n?20 Gunina ci sono meno di 100 punti Elo di differenza. Certo, 11 turni sono molti e per vincere sarà necessario ottenere un punteggio molto alto. Lo scorso anno la russa Tatiana Kosintseva e l'armena Lilit Mkrtchian fecero 8,5 punti e dovettero sfidarsi in uno spareggio per stabilire la vincitrice. La vittoria andò alla Kosintseva, che quindi bissò il successo del 2007. Tra le altre partecipanti possono vantare un successo nel Campionato anche la Zhukova (nella?1^ edizione,?2000), la?Stefanova (nel?2002 all'età di 23 anni) e la Cramling (nel 2003). Vediamo l'albo d'oro della manifestazione:? 2000 Batumi, Georgia ?Natalia Zhukova?(UKR) 2001 Warsaw, Poland ?Almira Skripchenko?(MDA) 2002 Varna, Bulgaria ?Antoaneta Stefanova?(BUL) 2003 Istanbul, Turkey ?Pia Cramling?(SWE) 2004 Dresden, Germany ?Alexandra Kosteniuk?(RUS) 2005 Chişinău, Moldova ?Kateryna Lahno?(UKR) 2006 Kuşadası, Turkey ?Ekaterina Atalik?(TUR) 2007 Dresden, Germany ?Tatiana Kosintseva?(RUS) 2008 Plovdiv, Bulgaria ?Kateryna Lahno?(UKR) 2009 St. Petersburg, Russia ?Tatiana Kosintseva?(RUS) ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Sono previsti 11 turni di gioco dal 6 al 17 marzo, con turno di riposo il 13. Eventuali spareggi si giocheranno il 18.?L'orario di inizio delle partite è fissato alle ore 15,30. Tempo di riflessione: 90 minuti per 40 mosse + 30 minuti per finire + 30 secondi di incremento a mossa. Sito ufficiale, QUI Partite in diretta, QUI E' obbligatorio un bel FORZA RAGAZZE! ?   http://www.scacchierando.net/dblog/articolo.asp?articolo=1746 2010-03-05T18:30:00+01:00       European Chess Championship 2010 Hello everybody! Tomorrow, March 6, 2010, the very strong European Women's Chess Championship will start in Rijeka, Croatia. This championship is a qualification tournament for the Women's World Chess Championship 2012. For that reason, this year the championship has attracted most of the strongest women chess players in Europe who would like to qualify for next world championship cycle. The reigning European champion right now is Tatiana Kosintseva who won the European championship 2009 in Saint-Petersburg in March last year. The full starting list of the European chess championship 2010 are, in order of rating: No. Name FideID FED RtgI 1 GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2902257 BUL 2555 2 IM Kosintseva Nadezhda 4134974 RUS 2554 3 IM Muzychuk Anna 14111330 SLO 2533 4 GM Kosintseva Tatiana 4133471 RUS 2524 5 GM Cramling Pia 1700030 SWE 2523 6 GM Sebag Marie 617822 FRA 2506 7 IM Mkrtchian Lilit 13300601 ARM 2503 8 IM Javakhishvili Lela 13601458 GEO 2500 9 WGM Zhukova Natalia 14101513 UKR 2492 10 IM Danielian Elina 13300210 ARM 2491 11 GM Hoang Thanh Trang 12400149 HUN 2487 12 IM Paehtz Elisabeth 4641833 GER 2486 13 IM Cmilyte Viktorija 12801259 LTU 2485 14 GM Dzagnidze Nana 13601903 GEO 2479 15 IM Gaponenko Inna 14101181 UKR 2472 16 IM Melia Salome 13602446 GEO 2467 17 GM Socko Monika 1106619 POL 2465 18 IM Rajlich Iweta 1108166 POL 2459 19 IM Dembo Yelena 723916 GRE 2457 20 WFM Gunina Valentina 4167570 RUS 2457 21 IM Skripchenko Almira 13900145 FRA 2456 22 IM Tairova Elena 13503383 RUS 2455 23 IM Ushenina Anna 14110911 UKR 2452 24 IM Khotenashvili Bela 13602640 GEO 2448 25 GM Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan 13600168 SCO 2447 26 IM Muzychuk Mariya 14114550 UKR 2444 27 IM Kovalevskaya Ekaterina 4116704 RUS 2438 28 IM Moser Eva 1607456 AUT 2437 29 IM Khurtsidze Nino 13600320 GEO 2434 30 IM Foisor Cristina-Adela 1200496 ROU 2433 31 IM Vasilevich Tatjana 14101610 UKR 2414 32 IM Romanko Marina 4149351 RUS 2409 33 WGM Zawadzka Jolanta 1122320 POL 2404 34 GM Peng Zhaoqin 1004786 NED 2401 35 IM Milliet Sophie 623725 FRA 2391 36 WGM Savina Anastasia 4196872 RUS 2391 37 WGM Zdebskaja Natalia 14109956 UKR 2390 38 IM Lomineishvili Maia 13600656 GEO 2385 39 WGM Kovanova Baira 4164083 RUS 2385 40 IM Bojkovic Natasa 908550 SRB 2384 41 WGM Bodnaruk Anastasia 4181751 RUS 2384 42 WGM Galojan Lilit 13301314 ARM 2380 43 IM Matveeva Svetlana 4119827 RUS 2373 44 WIM Molchanova Tatjana 4132203 RUS 2369 45 WGM Majdan Joanna 1121979 POL 2364 46 WGM Girya Olga 4195752 RUS 2362 47 IM Dworakowska Joanna 1107445 POL 2356 48 WGM