Italian Championship: Luca Moroni and Olga Zimina win titles
Luca Moroni and Olga Zimina emerged as the winners of the Italian Championship 2022, both claiming their second national titles. The Italian Championship, 12-player and 8-player round robins (open and women, respectively), took place in Cagliari (Sardegna) from November 12-23, 2022. The rating favourite in the open section Luca Moroni grabbed the lead after Round 4 and never looked back. The native of Desio scored an impressive 8½ /11 and claimed the title with a round to spare. The champion became the only unbeaten player in the tournament. Danyyil Dvirnyy and Sabino Brunello finished 1½ points behind the champion and tied for second place. Sonneborn-Berger favoured Danyyil, who took silver. The bronze medal goes to Sabino Brunello. Final standings: 1 GM Moroni, Luca 2559 8½ 2 GM Dvirnyy, Danyyil 2514 7 3 GM Brunello, Sabino 2518 7 4 GM Basso, Pier Luigi 2503 6½ 5 GM David, Alberto 2517 6 6 IM Barp, Alberto 2412 6 7 GM Sonis, Francesco 2547 6 8 GM Godena, Michele 2463 5½ 9 GM Lodici, Lorenzo 2536 4 10 FM Carnicelli, Valerio 2325 4 11 IM Di Benedetto, Edoardo 2378 3 12 FM Lettieri, Giuseppe 2427 2½ The women’s event saw the dominance of Olga Zimina, who won six straight games and removed all the questions about the champion after Round 6. Despite losing to Zimina, Marina Brunello netted 5½ points and finished second. Melissa Maione took bronze. Final standings: 1 IM Zimina, Olga 2283 6½ 2 IM Brunello, Marina 2337 5½ 3 Maione, Melissa 1928 4 4 Cassi, Elisa 1995 3½ 5 IM Sedina, Elena 2197 2½ 6 WFM Raccanello, Marianna 2062 2 7 Gabbani, Sara 1844 2 8 Martinelli, Valeria 2008 2 The U20 Italian Championship held alongside the open and women’s sections ended in victory for Gabriele Lumachi. Ieysaa Bin-Suhayl is second, Joshuaede Cappelletto came third. Photo: official website Official website: federscacchi.com/
World Team Championship 2022: China, India, Spain, and Uzbekistan advance
Azerbaijan, France, Poland, and Ukraine are eliminated When chess players, officials, and fans arrived at the Western Wall Plaza on Wednesday morning, they saw over one hundred Ethiopian Jews celebrating Sigd. Tour guide Shuki Cohen told the chess group, “The Ethiopian Jews are here in big numbers today, as Sigd is a once-a-year holiday.” After their tour of the Old City, which also included the Tower of David and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the USA team players and captain speculated about where the next championship might be held. Perhaps the championship’s next location will be discussed by the FIDE Council, which will be meeting on November 25 here in Jerusalem. Dozens of fans attend each round of the FIDE World Team Championship 2022. One is Fernando Maar from Toronto, Canada. From inside the playing hall, Maar watches the players’ faces and their moves on the display screens. Another fan is Mark Flaum from Ashdod, Israel. Flaum prefers the commentary room to the playing hall. Flaum said, “I don’t even need the commentary, just sitting five meters from the legend Vishy Anand is fantastic. However, I also like Almira and Vishy’s commentary because they don’t use computers. It’s human thinking.” Menachem Wertheim, tour guide, visited the tournament because his friend Moshe Slav, a former Chairman of the Israel Chess Federation, invited him. Wertheim was honoured to see Anand again because he played against Anand in a 2017 simul in Jerusalem. At the start of the quarterfinals, three of the world’s top 25 rapid-rated players were competing: France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2775) is ranked seventh in the world. Azerbaijan’s Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2747) is ranked 12th, and his teammate Teimour Radjabov (2718) is ranked 25th. By the end of the quarterfinals, the teams of these three top players had been eliminated. Quarterfinals Round 1 Leontxo Garcia, a journalist for El Pais since 1985, rang the gong to start the first round of the quarterfinals. In yesterday’s match against the United States of America, India won 3-1 by winning two games as Black and drawing two games as White. In the first round of the quarterfinals, India repeated that winning formula beating France by a score of 3-1. First board Vidit Santosh Gujrathi as Black defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a topical line of the English opening. Third board S. L. Narayanan prevailed over against Laurence Fressinet after the Frenchman mishandled a slightly better endgame. Boards 2 and 4, where India had White, were draws. The last game to finish was board 4, where France’s Tigran Gharamian held a draw with one knight against Krishnan Sasikiran’s g- and h-pawns. Uzbekistan wrestled down Ukraine by a score of 3-1. Javokhir Sindarov got the best of Kirill Shevchenko in a sharp Sicilian battle with White and Jakhongir Vakhidov scored an excellent strategic victory over Igor Kovalenko. Spain and Azerbaijan tied their match 2-2, with every game drawn. China won over Poland 2.5-1.5 thanks to the victories of Lu Shanglei over Radoslaw Wojtaszek on the first board and Bai Jinshi over Mateusz Bartel (in both games, the Chinese players had White). Poland struck back on board 4, where Szymon Gumularz defeated Di Li but it was not enough to save the match. Round 2 Before round 2 of the quarterfinals, Elisha Sagi, the under-10 champion for all of Israel, rang the gong. After losing 1-3 the first round the French players were faced a daunting task but “les bleus” did the almost-impossible. In an exact reversal of round 1, France defeated India 3-1 by winning two games as Black with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Laurent Fressinet taking revenge on their opponents. Spain defeated Azerbaijan 2.5-1.5. After the squads exchanged blows on boards 3 and 4, all eyes were on the game David Anton Guijarro against Teimour Radjabov, in which the Spaniard eventually pulled out a victory in a long endgame. Since Spain tied round 1, winning the round 2 match means that Spain advances to the semifinals. The Chinese players drew all four games against their Polish opponents. By tying round 2 after winning round 1, China progressed into the semifinals. Uzbekistan won 2.5 to 1.5 against Ukraine, advancing to semifinals since it also won the previous round. In an interview, the Uzbek first board Nordirbek Yakubboev says that his team intends to win gold in Jerusalem, just as it did in Chennai at the 2022 Olympiad. Tiebreak France and India played a blitz tiebreak, with a time control of 3 minutes with a two-second increment. India won the tiebreak 2.5 to 1.5. This Year in Jerusalem On the tour, Shuki Cohen said that Jews say, “Next year in Jerusalem.” The Chinese, Indian, Spanish, Uzbek players in the World Team Championship 2022 each hope that this year in Jerusalem will be when their team wins. Text: WIM Alexey Root, FIDE Press Officer, Jerusalem Photos: Dr. Mark Livshitz and Maria Emelianova Official website: worldteams.fide.com/
Bernard Lesbros wins Senegalese Championship 2022
Bernard Lesbros is the new champion of Senegal. The 74-year-old rating-favourite came out on top in fierce competition with Ware Diop and El Hadji Saidou Nourou Ba. After the preliminaries, the final stage of the Senegalese Championship 2022, a 10-player round-robin with classical time control, took place over the last two weekends in the Arene Nationale de Pikine, Dakar. The reigning champion Amadou Lamine Cissé did not defend his title as he was out of the country. The championship saw a very close fight, with neither player completing the event unbeaten. Lesbros had a slow start scoring just 50% in the first three rounds but then stringed together six straight victories to finish clear first, a half point ahead of Wara Diop. El Hadji Saidou Nourou Ba, the only player to defeat the new champion, took bronze. “It is very difficult to win a national title at my age, but I prepared very well for the event. I even hired a personal coach to achieve this goal,” said Bernard Lesbros with a broad smile in a short interview after the final round. Final standings: 1 Lesbros, Bernard 1878 7½ 2 Diop, Wara 1636 7 3 El Hadji Saidou Nourou, Ba 1644 6½ 4 Marochkina, Nadezhda 1668 5½ 5 Bodin-Hullin, Thomas 1838 5 6 Kone, Sidy 1400 4½ 7 Ly Abdoulaye, Aziz 1400 4 8 Wane, Al Hassane 1789 3 9 Kaundum A, Robert Diatta 1635 1 10 Diankha, Bara 1400 1 Photo: FESEC Facebook page
Meltwater Tour Finals 2022: Carlsen takes the sole lead
Magnus Carlsen racked up his seventh straight rapid game win to snatch the sole lead at the half-way point of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals in San Francisco. The World Chess Champion put on another sparkling display in Round 4 of 7 as he thrashed Dutch No.1 Anish Giri 3-0 to march on towards victory in the $1.6 million Tour’s end-of-season hybrid event. Meanwhile, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Carlsen’s biggest rival in this tournament and throughout the 2022 Tour, lost a catastrophic match to Vietnam’s Liem Quang Le that puts a huge hole in his hopes. Duda and Liem played out two long draws before Liem broke through to win in 46 moves in the third. On screen, Duda looked devastated. Liem then turned the screw with 29…e5! in the fourth to win 3-1. He climbs to third position with seven points, behind Carlsen on 12/15 and Duda on 9. Carlsen’s opening game saw him play the now rare at the top level French Defence. It was a risk and quickly the newly-installed 2022 Tour Champion found himself in what he thought was a losing position. Carlsen admitted after: “I’d just missed his a4 move in the opening — after that I think I’m pretty busted!” Giri didn’t spot the chance to blow open the champion’s centre, though. The Dutchman sacrificed a bishop but it didn’t work and Carlsen took over. A wild game ended with Carlsen in front. Game 2 went worse for Giri. The Dutchman collapsed in the middlegame as he allowed Carlsen to active his bishop pair. Carlsen pinned Giri’s rook and the game ended in short order. It was Carlsen’s sixth rapid win in a row. Elsewhere, Indian teen Arjun Erigaisi got off the mark with 3 points and $7,500 as he beat Azerbaijan’s No.1 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Erigaisi had gone 11 games without a win in the event, but broke that run in the second and went on take the fourth too for a 3-1 score. Finally, the US star Wesley So won his second match in a row with a 2.5-1.5 victory over Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. Both players, who were expected to challenge at the top, have failed to live up to expectations in this event so far. With three rounds to go, Carlsen remains the hot favourite. Yet he still has to play Duda on the final day. Day 5 of the Tour Finals 2022 kicks off at 15:00 ET / 21:00 CET on November 18. Watch the broadcast live on chess24.com or chess24’s YouTube and Twitch channels.
Meltwater Tour Finals 2022: Carlsen off to flying start
The final stage of the multi award-winning Meltwater Champions Chess Tour got off to a dramatic start in San Francisco as Magnus Carlsen edged US star Wesley So. Carlsen and So, the two big rivals from the 2021 Tour, went head-to-head on Day 1 of the 2022 Tour Finals in a clash seen by the experts as a potential tournament decider. Playing in his first Tour event of the year, So battled hard but it was the Norway’s World Champion who came out on top – despite a series of blunders. The opener started with the notoriously drawish Berlin opening but it did reach an interesting game with Carlsen with the white pieces having a slight edge before it ended in a draw by repetition. So, the newly-crowned Chess.com Global Speed Chess Championship winner, then had Carlsen on the ropes in game 2 having been allowed to push a pawn to the seventh rank. But Carlsen, as he so often does, dug deep to find defensive resources that stopped So queening. So’s winning chances evaporated and the game ended in a draw after 113 moves. After coming back from the brink, Carlsen hit back hard. With the champion threatening to break through, So played 30… Qa8 which let Carlsen into his position. 35. Qg5+ followed and then the killer 39. Rxb7. Carlsen had made the breakthrough to go 2-1 up and So was left needing a win in the final rapid game. It looked like plain sailing for the Norwegian but a sudden one-move blunder in the final game let So level the score. Carlsen miscalculated playing the careless 25… Qg6 that allowed his queen to get pinned after 26. Nf6+ gxf6 27. Rg3. Carlsen was furious with himself. However, So could have played 27.Qxc6 and instead left the door open for Carlsen to set up a fortress. The World Champion, who has previously said he “doesn’t believe in fortresses”, duly did so and secured the draw he needed to win the match and take his Tour earnings over $200,000 for the season. So realised his own mistake and said afterwards he “forgot” about Carlsen’s defensive possibilities. Carlsen said: “To be honest, the match today was pretty weak by our standards. We can do better.” In the other matches, Jan-Krzysztof Duda was the first player to win a match – and $7,500 – defeating the Indian teenager Arjun Erigaisi 2.5-0.5. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov came out on top against Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa in the battle between the youngest and oldest players in the competition. Shakh, playing from Baku in the middle of the night, took a huge win against the teenage sensation who has set the 2022 season alight. It took a final game grind to beat the 17-year-old 2.5-1.5. The last match to finish was a tight encounter between Vietnam’s speed specialist Liem Quang Le and Dutch No.1 Anish Giri. After four straight draws, the match went to tiebreaks. Giri took the first and then secured the draw he needed in the second to win the match. Giri said after he thought the quality of the games were “very high”. Carlsen plays Erigaisi on Day 2, Liem faces So, Mamedyarov us up against Duda and Pragg takes on Giri. Day 2 of the Tour Finals 2022 kicks off at 15:00 ET / 21:00 CET on November 15. Watch the broadcast live on chess24.com or chess24’s YouTube and Twitch channels.
Chess for Social benefits and Women inclusion Conference set for December 1
FIDE Social Commission, FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess and French Chess Federation are pleased to announce the “Chess for Social benefits and Women inclusion & INFINITE CHESS Evolution” conference that will take place on December 01, 2022, in Paris, France. The conference will be held in a hybrid format and is open for both offline and online participation. The 4.5-hour event will be devoted to two topics: FIDE, ECU & FFC – Chess for Social benefits and Women & Social in the world: ambitions, projects, trends. Current and new social projects of the International Chess Federation, European Chess Union and French Chess Federation will be presented during the event. Besides, the preliminary results and the evolution of the pilot FIDE INFINITE CHESS Project will be announced. The panel of speakers includes Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Deputy Chair of the FIDE Management Board, Eloi Relange, President of the French Chess Federation, Franck Droin, ECU Social Comission Chairman, President of the Health Social Disability Commission of the FFE, Anastasia Sorokina, Infinite Chess Project Leader, Abhijit Kunte, 4th grandmaster of India, Coordinator of the Chess Social Projects in the Indian Oil Corporation and coach of the Indian National women team. The speakers will exchange experiences and showcase how chess helps people worldwide and make changes for the better. Topics and speakers: WHO Project – Eric Desailly FIDE INFINITE CHESS Project (chess for kids with autism spectrum disorder) – Anastasia Sorokina, Infinite Chess Project Leader, Natalija Popova, member of the ECU Social Commission, author of the FIDE Chess Program for kids with ASD, Ala Mishchanka, author of the FIDE Chess Program for kids with ASD, Special needs educational assistant, more than 15 years of experience (Canada), Researchers from the Chess Research Institute at ASPU named after Kh.Abovyan ICAR Project (International Chess Benefits Assessment Resources) – Franck Droin, ECU Social Commission Chairman, President of the Health Social Disability Commission of the FFE and ICAR Team Leader ECU Social Commission – ECU Social Commission Social trends – Alexandra Weldon, Head of Philanthropy, MOHARI group Prison to Pride: countrywide realisation of the Chess for Prisoners program – Abhijit Kunte, 4th grandmaster of India, Coordinator of the Chess Social Projects in the Indian Oil Corporation, coach of the Indian National women’s team Chess for women in FIDE – Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Deputy Chair of the FIDE Management Board, Anastasia Sorokina, Infinite Chess Project Leader, Anastasiya Karlovych, member of the ECU Social Commission. Chess like a tool for social responsibility – For Coloured Girls, Geraldine Engelman. CUTE: Ukrainian Women Program 2022-2025 – Franck Droin, ECU Social Comission Chairman, President of the Health Social Disability Commission of the FFE, Anastasiya Karlovych, member of the ECU Social Commission Second Brain Project – Virginie Dubois All attendees are required to register for the conference online using this link. You can find the detailed programme of the conference here. If you have any questions, please email them to socialchess@fide.com
93rd FIDE Congress: 2022 FIDE Zonal Council Minutes
FIDE publishes the Minutes of FIDE Zonal Council Meeting which was held on 3 August 2022 in Chennai, India. Download 2022 FIDE ZONAL COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES (pdf)
93rd FIDE Congress: 2022 FIDE General Assembly Minutes
FIDE publishes the Minutes of FIDE General Assembly meeting which was held on 7-8 August 2022 in Chennai, India. Download 2022 FIDE GENERAL ASSEMBLY MINUTES (pdf)
2022 3rd FIDE Council meeting: List of Decisions
FIDE publishes the list of decisions of the 2022 3rd FIDE Council meeting, which was held on October 17. Download List of Decisions (PDF)
2022 FIDE World Amateur Championships kicks off in Malta
The 2022 FIDE World Amateur Championships took off at the 4-star Conference Hotel “Paradise Bay Resort” in Malta. Running from October 20-30, the event brought together 197 players from 51 federations, including 27 title-holders. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich kicked off the championship with the ceremonial first move 1.e4. The event is held over four sections: U 2300, U 2000, U 1700 and Women U1700. Women playing in the open sections U 2300 and U 2000 will be eligible to win prizes from both categories. All the competitions are 9-round Swiss tournaments with classical time control. The final ranking order of the players is determined by the number of points scored. If at the end of the tournament, two or more players are tied for first place or any prize, the tie will be broken in accordance with the following criteria: 1. Results of direct encounters between the tied players (applies only if all tied players have played each other).2. Buccholz Cut 13. Buccholz4. The greater number of games played with black5. The greater number of wins Photo: Andreas Kontokanis