Online Cadets and Youth World Cup Finals are all set
The qualification stage of the Online Cadets and Youth World Cup 2021 came to an end. More than 1600 participants from 100 national federations took part in the tournaments from 1-20 August. The top finishers in each of 10 age categories (Open under 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 years old; Girls under 10, 12, 14, 16, 18) and seeded players secured their places in the finals scheduled for 26-31 August. One hundred sixty participants of the finals (16 per category) represent 35 countries from every part of the Globe. India, one short of 30 players, plus Russia, the USA, and Vietnam, boast the broadest participation with more than ten players each. The event is also abounding in title-holders. Three grandmasters are taking part – GM Batsuren Dambasuren (Mongolia) and GM Lance Henderson De La Fuente (Spain, pictured below) cross swords as the rating favourites in the Open under 18 category, trailed by five International Masters. Famous Indian prodigy GM Gukesh D (pictured below) starts as a favourite in the Open Under 16 tournament. Four rival IMs will be trying to steal his thunder, with Russian hope Volodar Murzin among them. Rated #7 among girls under 20, IM Bibisara Assaubayeva (Kazakhstan, pictured below) is a firm favourite in the Girls under 18 section. Among Girls U16, the closest gold race rivals are Bibisara’s compatriot WFM Xeniya Balabayeva and Indian WIM Divya Deshmukh, set to meet only in the final. With more young stars taking part, like the world’s top-rated player under 10 Turkish CM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (FIDE standard rating of 2150), the event is set to a great start. The finals will be held in the knockout format on the Tornelo platform, with a time control of 15 minutes plus 10 seconds increment, and broadcast live on Chess24 and FollowChess. The live video stream of the games with commentary by GM Farrukh Amonatov will be available on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/fidechannel. The Online Cadets and Youth World Cup is the first stage of the 2021 World Championship cycle for young players, that includes the Grand Prix series and culminates in a Super Final in December. Three World Cup winners per category will qualify directly for the Super Final, while five players placed 4-8 and one highest-rated player among 9-16 will be eligible for the Grand Prix. The event is supported by SOCAR, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic. You can find the results, regulations, and other information on the official website: https://youth-worldcup.fide.com/
Three in the lead after Round 6
For the first time in the event, all five games in today’s round ended peacefully, as while a few players stood better at various points, no one could increase their advantage to a significant degree. With the slew of draws, So, Vachier-Lagrave, and Dominguez remain at the top of the standings with 4.0/6, while Caruana is still a half-point behind with three rounds left to play. Swiercz – Mamedyarov | ½-½, 42 moves A 5.Re1 Berlin gave Swiercz a small but nagging advantage in terms of the structure, though he was never able to do much against Mamedyarov’s stubborn defence. A risky pawn grab (23…Bxa2) a-la Game 1 of the 1972 Spassky-Fischer World Championship worked out just fine for Mamedyarov, who managed to force liquidations and eventually secure a draw in the endgame. Dominguez – Svidler | ½-½, 35 moves One of the sharpest games of the round featured aggressive handling of the Black side of the Italian Game by Svidler, who seemed to burn all bridges by advancing his kingside pawns towards White’s king. Missing an opportunity (pointed out by the engines) in the middlegame to sacrifice a knight and launch a powerful attack, Svidler instead played more calmly, allowing Dominguez to consolidate and equalize the game. 26…b5! 27.axb5 Nf3+!! was winning according to the engines, with the point that 28.gxf3 gxf3 29.Rfd1 Qh4!-+ (followed by Ra7-g7) gives Black a decisive attack. Caruana – Vachier-Lagrave | ½-½, 46 moves In a highly important game for the standings, Caruana came armed with some deep theoretical preparation, targeting MVL’s beloved Najdorf and repeating the same line (6.Be3) that Dominguez used earlier to score a win against the French No. 1. Maxim deviated from the game with Dominguez, though he still found himself under serious pressure, using up more than half his time while Caruana was still clearly in his preparation. In a complex middlegame with opposite sides castling, Fabiano had managed to create a powerful passed pawn on f6, but MVL was just in time to create counterplay with a passed pawn of his own. Not seeing a way to break through, Caruana forced a draw as the players reached the first time-control. Shankland – Rapport | ½-½, 47 moves An unusual line in the Scotch Opening led to a fresh position early on, as both players castled queenside before starting to fight for key squares in the center and kingside. It seemed as though Rapport had a small edge thanks to his healthier pawn structure but ultimately couldn’t make anything out of it, eventually allowing simplifications into a drawn rook endgame. Xiong – So | ½-½, 56 moves The final game of the round to finish saw Xiong utilizing the London System, as he managed to put So under some pressure in the middlegame thanks to his better piece coordination. So defended well, and although Xiong missed a few chances to increase his edge, he was never close to winning, as the game eventually petered out into a drawn bishops of opposite color endgame. Round 7 of the 2021 Sinquefield Cup takes place on Tuesday, August 24, starting at 2:50 PM CDT, with all the action covered live by commentators GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Alejandro Ramirez, and GM Maurice Ashley. Watch live on grandchesstour.org as well as twitch.tv/kasparovchess. Text: IM Kostya Kavutskiy Photo: Lennart Ootes and Bryan Adams Further Information:Web: GrandChessTour.org | Twitter: @GrandChessTourInstagram: @GrandChessTour | Facebook: @GrandChessTour#GrandChessTour#STLRapidBlitz Venue: Saint Louis Chess Club, USAAugust 10- August 16, 2021 Press Contact:press@grandchesstour.org Photos: Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour and Spectrum Studios Credits available on Flickr. Livestream:Grandchesstour.orgKasparovchess.com
Shant Sargsyan wins Tashkent Open, Agzamov Memorial
GM Shant Sargsyan (Armenia) came as the winner of the 14th Tashkent Open, Agzamov Memorial. The event took place from 15th August to 23rd August 2021 in the capital of Uzbekistan and brought together 151 chess players from 12 countries, including 20 grandmasters and 11 international masters. The 9-round competition, officiated by the Chief Arbiter Husan Turdialiev, was played over the board in two groups – group A rated 1800 and above and group B for the participants with a rating below 1800. The total prize fund of the event reached $25,000. The tournament was organized by Uzbekistan Chess Federation in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Sport of the Republic of Uzbekistan and supported by the FIDE Aid Package to open tournaments. Shant Sargsyan (pictured above) completed the competition undefeated and finished clear first, scoring 7 of 9 points. His main competitor, a local favourite Nodirbek Yakkuboev was coming into the final round sharing the top position with the eventual champion but fell to Misratdin Iskandarov and had to settle for fifth place. Six players tied finished a half-point behind the winner with another local hero Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) and Muhammad Khusenkhojaev (Tajikistan) taking second and third prizes respectively thanks to better tiebreaks (performance). Final standings: 1 GM Sargsyan, Shant ARM 2626 7 2 GM Abdusattorov, Nodirbek UZB 2634 6½ 3 IM Khusenkhojaev, Muhammad TJK 2383 6½ 4 GM Harutyunyan, Tigran K. ARM 2564 6½ 5 GM Yakubboev, Nodirbek UZB 2598 6½ 6 GM Vakhidov, Jakhongir UZB 2534 6½ 7 GM Iskandarov, Misratdin AZE 2552 6½ 8 GM Mchedlishvili, Mikheil GEO 2570 6 9 GM Petrosyan, Manuel ARM 2620 6 10 GM Stupak, Kirill BLR 2491 6 Akbarali Abdukhakimov (Uzbekistan) won the tournament in category B. During a closing ceremony, the prize winners were awarded by Mr. Aziz Abdukhakimov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, Chairman of Uzbekistan Chess Federation, and Mr. Sheikh Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Mualla, President of Arab Chess Federation, President of the Sharjah Cultural Chess Club.
Online Olympiad Day 3 concluded: 16 teams advance
Sunday, August 22nd, 2021 – The round began today with a fun anecdote in a conversation between Malta’s team captain and principal arbiter Alex Holowczak. “If you see our #1 player floating around, it’s not a virtual zoom background – he IS on a boat.” An excellent example of the fun possibilities of online chess! In the later rounds of the online Olympiad, we will often see many of the stronger teams compete together from the same venue, but in the early stages, it’s quite a challenge to coordinate a full roster, especially in August! After today’s four final rounds, and pending the fair play panel report, the 16 qualifying teams that will advance to Division 3 are: Hong Kong, Nepal, Lebanon (all from Pool A), Kenya, Namibia, Palestine (Pool B), Angola, Cyprus, Ethiopia (Pool C), Suriname, Aruba, Ghana (Pool D), Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Haiti (Pool E) and Malawi (as best 4th, from Pool B). Division 3 will run from Friday 27th to Sunday 29th. and will see these 16 qualifiers joined by 34 new seeded teams They will play in 5 pools of 10 teams each. Nothing substantial changed in the last four rounds in Pool A and yesterday’s three top contenders advanced to Division 3. Congratulations to the winning team Hong Kong, scoring 20 points out of 22. Undefeated, they had nine wins and two draws, finishing full two points ahead of second-place Nepal (18/22) and three points ahead of Lebanon (17/22), that took the third qualifying spot. The top scorers for the Hong Kong team were boards 3, 4 and 6. Feng Eunice (11/11!!), Huang Yuen Tung (10.5/11) and WCM Li Joy Ching (10/11) all performed way above their expectations, especially 12-year-old Feng Eunice, rated FIDE 1528 standard. Fourth place Fiji (15/22) did make a comeback, including two 6-0 wins in rounds 9 and 10, but a 2-4 loss to Lebanon shattered any hopes of taking one of the three qualifying spots. Although a loss against Namibia in the last round stopped them from scoring 100%, Pool B winner Kenya had a great run these last three days. They have dominated one of the most competed groups of the five pools, scoring 20/22, and qualifying with ease to the next stage. The African team, captained by Ben Mangana, relied abundantly on the reserve boards and distributed the efforts throughout all of the players: in fact, Kenya’s top team scorer can be found on board 12 (!) where Gosrani Naiya made an outstanding unbeaten 7/8. One of the few games that Kenya lost was played in round 8. In the next diagram, Mohamud Hussein Ali, playing for Somalia, already has his eyes set on Black’s weakened king, in the hands of Kenya’s Irungu Brian Mwangi. The game continued 28.Rf4! Nf8 29.Rh4+ Nh7 and now 30.Nf6! with the decisive threat 31.Rxh7 mate. The final tactic is quite nice, as the knight can’t be captured because of 31.Rxh7 mate anyway! As we mentioned yesterday, second-place finishers – and surprise contenders – Namibia (18/22), did have an outside chance of qualifying by winning their four matches combined with a setback by Malawi and/or Palestine. Their epic last round win against Kenya blended beautifully with Malawi’s unfortunate 2.5-3.5 loss to Lesotho, enabling Palestine (17/22) to clinch third place by just one point. However, it does seem that Malawi might qualify as best 4th (pending fair play results). The team of Angola run through Pool C with remarkable ease. Scoring 22/22, including several 6-0, they might be the best team in the Division. Their medium rating is definitely one of the highest (1956) and the team captained by Antonio Henriques Assis has performed outstandingly along all the boards, both main and reserve. The top scorer has been FM Junior Domingos with 7/7, but three other players have also reached the 7-point mark, albeit with some default wins. Despite losing to Sudan and Angola, Cyprus (18/22) maintained second place in good measure thanks to their close 3.5-2.5 win over Jersey. Unfortunately, this loss allowed Ethiopia to overtake Jersey on the finish line and clinch third place with 16/22. Suriname have also been a powerhouse in this Division. They have steamrolled through Pool D, winning all the matches by a minimum 4.5 score (with several 6-0), and taking down the group with a definitive 22/22 top score. All the team players have contributed to some degree in this success, with a special mention to WCM Kaslan Alexandra, who scored an outstanding 8.5/9 result on board four. Second place finishers were Aruba, with 20/22. The Caribbean island team also played fantastically, only losing to Suriname but crushing the rest of the competition and qualifying with ease. The third qualification spot goes to Ghana, who preserved their advantage over the rest of the teams by scoring 7.5/8 in the last four rounds. Due to connectivity problems in some of the African countries, this group has been a huge challenge for all contenders, and the fact that all teams were eventually able to participate must be applauded. Pool E finished in the same fashion as we left the standings yesterday. Puerto Rico continued dominating today and won the group with an undisputed 100% score, /22 crushing the opposition mercilessly. One of Puerto Rico’s top scorers was Coralys M. Alvarado. Playing on board six, Alvarado scored 9/10, a massive result for the team. The following diagram is from her game against Antigua and Barbuda’s Danae Joseph. Playing White, she thematically pushed her kingside pawns forward to breach her opponent’s defensive barrier. The game continued 18.g6! Qc6 19.h6! (thematic line opener) 19…b6? 20.gxh7+ Kh8 21.hxg7+ Nxg7 22.f6! and Black’s position is hopeless. After 23.Bh6 mate on g7 is unavoidable. Trinidad & Tobago did exactly the same (20/22), except for their loss against Puerto Rico, and their excellent second place guarantees a spot in the next stage. The third qualifying spot went to the team of Haiti, scoring an excellent 17/22, which will allow them to keep fighting next weekend against many top countries seeded into the event. Huge congratulations to them for competing at a high level despite everything they are going through. Pairings of the rounds, live games, PGN files and other useful information can be found on the FIDE Online Olympiad website. Please note that all results and standings remain provisional until the fair play panel submit its daily report. The games can be followed online on www.chess.com (Events), presented by Wouter Bik,
Day 5: Vachier-Lagrave bounces back, Caruana stumbles
What started off as a slow day with three draws quickly turned dramatic as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave bounced back in today’s round to defeat Darius Swiercz, while Jeffery Xiong took advantage of a time-trouble blunder by Fabiano Caruana to upset the World No. 2 in stunning fashion. With the win, Vachier-Lagrave propelled himself back into a tie for first place with 3.5/5, where he shares the lead with both Wesley So and Leinier Dominguez heading into the rest day tomorrow. So – Rapport | ½-½, 17 moves A surprise quick draw in the Berlin ended this game in less than 40 minutes into the round. In the post-game interview afterwards, So admitted he was not feeling well due to “a lack of sleep” from drinking too much coffee in the days prior. The draw also gets Wesley one step closer to clinching first place in the overall GCT standings. Svidler – Shankland | ½-½, 24 moves Peter Svidler opted for the rare 6.Bd3 against the Najdorf as the players quickly left charted waters and were on their own in a thematic Sicilian structure. The game stayed even the whole time, with both sides having weaknesses that balanced each other out. After an exchange of knights, the players soon repeated moves in an otherwise equal position. Mamedyarov – Dominguez | ½-½, 38 moves Using the rare move 7.Re1 in the Classical Queen’s Gambit Accepted, Mamedyarov prepared a sharp pawn sacrifice that gave him long-term compensation in the form of piece activity. However, Dominguez defended well, and after a series of exchanges, the players found themselves in a dead-equal rook endgame, where they immediately repeated moves. Vachier-Lagrave – Swiercz | 1-0, 47 moves Although Swiercz was able to get in some nice preparation in a topical line of the Italian Game, Vachier-Lagrave reacted well and still found a way to pose problems for his opponent. One wrong decision by Black gave MVL the opportunity to seize the initiative, as he found a dynamic way to activate his pieces and secure a significant advantage. Further precise technique by the Frenchman allowed him to reach a rook endgame with two pawns up, which he converted smoothly. Xiong – Caruana | 1-0, 36 moves Things looked a bit dangerous for Xiong as he quickly fell worse as White in a Reti Opening, due to Black’s space advantage in the center. However, one wrong move by Caruana turned the tables, as Xiong was able to activate his entire position thanks to a strong knight maneuver. In mutual time-trouble, it seemed like Caruana had managed to escape into an equal endgame, but a further blunder by Fabiano gave Xiong the opportunity to win a full minor piece, which he immediately spotted. Not seeing a way out, Caruana then flagged in a lost position, earning the 20-year-old Xiong one of the biggest scalps of his career. After Black’s last move 23…Nc6-d8, Xiong found the strong reply 24.Nb4!, looking to plant the knight on the excellent d5-square. Round 6 of the 2021 Sinquefield Cup takes place on Monday, August 23, starting at 2:50 PM CDT, with all the action covered live by commentators GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Alejandro Ramirez, and GM Maurice Ashley. Watch live on grandchesstour.org as well as twitch.tv/kasparovchess. Text: IM Kostya Kavutskiy Photo: Lennart Ootes and Austin Fuller Further Information:Web: GrandChessTour.org | Twitter: @GrandChessTourInstagram: @GrandChessTour | Facebook: @GrandChessTour#GrandChessTour#STLRapidBlitz Venue: Saint Louis Chess Club, USAAugust 10- August 16, 2021 Press Contact:press@grandchesstour.org Photos: Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour and Spectrum Studios Credits available on Flickr. Livestream:Grandchesstour.orgKasparovchess.com
Everything on the line after Day 2
Saturday, August 21st 2021 – Sixty federation teams battled it out today on Chess.com’s online servers for the sixteen qualification spots that advance to the next stage of the Olympiad. Pool A started very early – 0800 UTC – and Pool E closed the playing day at 20.00 UTC, for more than twelve hours of official online chess: rounds 4-7 are now in the books! Things are starting to look very good for Hong Kong, who are leading Pool A with 13/14. They finished today’s session with three match wins and one draw against Nepal, who are just behind in the standings with 12/14. Lebanon also had a great session, overtaking Maldives (now 4th), completing the three direct qualification spots, pending tomorrow’s four final rounds. There are still quite a few direct matches between these four contenders, so anything can happen. Even Fiji and Oman (5th and 6th) have an outside chance of getting in, but they must be very fortunate. Kenya had a huge chess afternoon, pulling ahead in Pool B. After two wins against direct competitors Malawi and Palestine (both on 12/12), they now lead the group with 14/14, and it seems very unlikely that they will miss a qualifying spot. Sharing second and third place, Malawi and Palestine still have to face each other tomorrow and both of them also will play against Lesotho, who might still have a chance to qualify. Meanwhile, Namibia (on 10/14) will try to finish strong and take advantage of any setbacks at the top of the standings. There was a five-way tie after the first three rounds yesterday afternoon in Pool C but we did mention that there were still some direct clashes ahead. Only two teams finished the day unscathed: both Angola and Cyprus now share the lead with a clean 14/14 result, after scoring very heavily against the bottom part of the table. However, Jersey is right behind them on 13/14, and they all have to play each other tomorrow in the final four rounds. Although unlikely, even Ethiopia and Sudan (both on 10/14) might have a chance for third place if they can take down the top scorers. One of the most important matches in Pool C was the round seven clash between top contenders Ethiopia and Cyprus, which eventually ended 2-4. The game diagram corresponds to board three, where Alice Ioannides Liu was able to win the point for Cyprus against her Ethiopian opponent Lidet Abate Haile. Ioannides Liu – playing Black – had been pressing for a while, but White was defending well. Disaster struck here when Abate Haile played 38.Kg1? (instead of blocking the check with 38.Bf3 and the game goes on). Black capitalized quickly with 38…Qc1+! 39.Qf1 Qe3+! winning the bishop. Note that the pawn on g3 does a great job creating mating threats and taking away defensive squares for the white king. In Pool D the team from Suriname are on a roll. Not only have they have won all their matches (14/14): they are crushing the field, scoring 5 and 6 points in each encounter. In second place, and also very likely to qualify, stands Aruba (12/14), who are also scoring heavily. However, they were overtaken in the last round of the day after losing the key match to Suriname by a score of 4.5-1.5. The following position emerged on board four of the match: Alexandra Kaslan (Suriname) is playing White against Lesley Cielo from Aruba. If you want to improve your endgame calculation, try and solve it before checking out the solution! Should White exchange the minor piece and go into the pawn ending? Yes of course! The game continued 38.Bxg6! Kxg6 39.Ke5 Kg5 40.Kd6 Kh4 41.Kxc5 Kxh3 42.Kxc6 Kxg4 43.Kb6 h5 44.c5 h4 45.c6 h3 46.c7 h2 47.c8=Q+ and White got there first! Black resigned soon after. The third qualification spot will be heavily contested in tomorrow’s four final rounds. Ghana (10/14) has an extra point over three teams on 9/14: Cape Verde, Cameroon and Sao Tome and Principe. Puerto Rico has a lock on Pool E. With a clean 14/14 score, nothing short of a disaster would prevent them from winning the group and qualifying to the third division. Scoring 5-1 and 6-0 respectively against second and third place contenders Trinidad &Tobago (12/14) and Haiti (12/14) has left no doubt about the practical strength of the squad. With a 1943 ELO medium rating, the team headed by captain Francisco Cruz Arce is clearly one of the strongest in balanced in the entire division. The squad only lost 2 games out of 42 and with several players on 100%. Having to play with the first three teams, Cayman Islands (9/12) still has a chance to achieve direct qualification, but they would need to win at least two of the three matches. Definitely, a team to watch out for in the final four rounds in this pool. Division 4 will finish tomorrow, Sunday 22nd, with the final four rounds (8-11). The games will begin at 08.00 UTC in Pool A and end at 20.00 UTC in Pool E. The first three teams of each pool advance to the next stage, and, owing to Afghanistan’s withdrawal, the best of the five 4th-placed teams in Division 4, ranked according to the pool tie-breaks, will also be invited to participate in Division 3. Pairings of the rounds, live games, PGN files and other useful information can be found on the FIDE Online Olympiad website. Please note that all results and standings remain provisional until the fair play panel submit its daily report. The games can be followed online on www.chess.com (Events), presented by Wouter Bik, with expert analysis by WFM Alessia Santeramo, GM Roeland Pruijssers, WGM Jen Shahade and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili. Commentary can also be followed on FIDE’s own Youtube channel. Text: IM Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from August 20th to September 15th, the 2021 FIDE Online Olympiad is a national teams event in which all federations affiliated with FIDE have the right to participate. Team’s consist of six players with a minimum of three female players and two junior players. Played online on Chess.com, the event features two main stages: the “Divisions stage”, and the Play-offs stage. All games are played with a 15 minutes + 5 seconds increment per move time control. The full schedule can be consulted here. Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE) Chess.com as the hosting platform Partners supporting the 2021 FIDE Online Olympiad: Shenzhen Longgang District Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism
FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss 2021: participant contracts
Dear players, Herewith we publish the official contracts of participants in FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss 2021 and FIDE Chess.com Women’s Grand Swiss 2021. To confirm your participation, you should sign and send the contract to the FIDE Secretariat (office@fide.com) no later than 12.00 CEST on August 30, 2021. Participant contract – FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss 2021 (pdf) (doc) Participant contract – FIDE Chess.com Women’s Grand Swiss 2021 (pdf) (doc) After the specified period, reserve players will be entitled to sign a contract (no later than 12.00 CEST on September 6, 2021). If you have decided not to participate in the tournament, we ask you to inform us about this decision so that we can invite a reserve player in advance. We would like to note that the current rules of Latvia for recognised sports competitions do not contain a requirement for quarantine upon entry into the country. However, as usual, it will be necessary to provide evidence of vaccination or present a fresh PCR test. At the time of writing, there are no requirements for playing in masks. However, the current state regulations may impose additional restrictions on people who do not have an official vaccination when visiting public places (this does not apply to the hotel or the playing area). In this regard, we would ask the participants who have been vaccinated with officially approved vaccines from the European Union — Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson — to report this fact to the Organising Committee for the correct planning of its work.
Day 4: Dominguez catches up with the leaders
It was another exciting round as Leinier Dominguez joined the leaders thanks to a spectacular victory over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, while Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So drew their game to remain on a ‘plus two’ score. Meanwhile, Darius Swiercz scored his first victory in the event, defeating Jeffery Xiong, as did both Sam Shankland and Richard Rapport, bouncing back from yesterday’s losses with nice wins over Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Peter Svidler. Dominguez – Vachier-Lagrave | 1-0, 33 moves A theoretical battle in the Najdorf turned into a brilliant victory for Dominguez, who found several exceptionally precise maneuvers to generate a decisive attack on the kingside. Vachier-Lagrave tried to put up some resistance, but it simply wasn’t enough as White’s pieces soon crashed through to deliver a forced mate. 31.Qe1! was the killer blow, threatening Qe6+ as well as ideas on the h-file. After 31…Bf6 32.Rh6!+- it was all over. Rapport – Svidler | 1-0, 36 moves After starting with 1.g3 Rapport managed to achieve a complex middlegame, gaining the pair of bishops early on and slowly building up pressure in the center. Although Svidler’s position was tenable, he didn’t react correctly to White’s advances on the kingside and soon found himself under an irresistible attack. Rapport was accurate until the end and forced resignation after his attack netted him a whole piece. 30.f5! gave White a crushing attack on the kingside. After 30…Ra6 31.f6 White followed up with Qxg3 and Qh4, with a decisive advantage. Shankland – Mamedyarov | 1-0, 44 moves Mamedyarov’s surprising treatment of the Berlin Defense caught Shankland off-guard in the opening, but it wasn’t the end of the world as Sam reached a fairly equal endgame with two knights and a better structure against Black’s two bishops. Although the game remained balanced for some time, Mamedyarov misplayed the position and all of a sudden fell worse when he could no longer sufficiently defend his weaknesses. This allowed Shankland to win a pawn, and then another, before smoothly converting the material advantage to win his first game of the event. Caruana – So | ½-½, 53 moves In the critical match-up between the leaders, Caruana did not get much out of the opening, a Symmetrical English, but did obtain a structural advantage in the middlegame after saddling Black with an isolated queen pawn. Unfortunately for Caruana, he wasn’t able to increase his advantage, and So held the draw with some patient defence. Swiercz – Xiong | 1-0, 54 moves Despite losing his first three games of the event, Swiercz continued to play principled chess and was rewarded for it, winning after a sharp struggle in a 6.Bg5 Najdorf. The game quickly reached a boiling point in the middlegame after a risky decision by Xiong to castle queenside, giving White huge attacking chances against Black’s king. Swiercz seized the opportunity and opened up the queenside to start a furious attack but was unable to land the knockout blow because of Xiong’s stubborn defence. Once the players reached the time control, Swiercz found himself up an exchange and won in style after Xiong missed the only saving defence. 53.b4! was the final winning shot, as 53…Kxb4 54.Qe7 leads to a winning king and pawn endgame, as does 53…Qxb4 54.Qa2+, followed by Qxb2 where White’s f-pawn will decide. Round 5 of the 2021 Sinquefield Cup takes place on Saturday, August 21, starting at 2:50 PM CDT, with all the action covered live by commentators GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Alejandro Ramirez, and GM Maurice Ashley. Watch live on grandchesstour.org as well as twitch.tv/kasparovchess. Text: IM Kostya Kavutskiy Photo: Lennart Ootes and Austin Fuller Further Information:Web: GrandChessTour.org | Twitter: @GrandChessTourInstagram: @GrandChessTour | Facebook: @GrandChessTour#GrandChessTour#STLRapidBlitz Venue: Saint Louis Chess Club, USAAugust 10- August 16, 2021 Press Contact:press@grandchesstour.org Photos: Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour and Spectrum Studios Credits available on Flickr. Livestream:Grandchesstour.orgKasparovchess.com
Elina Danielian wins European Women’s Championship
GM Elina Danielian (Armenia) came out on top at the European Women’s Championship. It is the greatest success in Elina’s distinguished career. The 11-round over-the-board Swiss tournament took place in Iasi (Romania), known as the country’s cultural capital. Danielian was coming into the final round, sharing first place with IM Iulija Osmak (Ukraine). Both leading contenders for the title had white pieces and pushed hard for the victory, but only the Armenian GM succeeded after defeating WIM Narva Mai and finished clear first with 9 points. Osmak made a valiant effort against Bela Khotenashvili (Georgia) but failed to find a crushing 33.g4!! (suggested by Stockfish) and eventually had settle for a draw and a silver medal. Olivia Kiolbasa (Poland) and Nataliya Buksa (Ukraine) tied for third place, scoring 8 points each, with the former taking bronze thanks to better tiebreaks. Final standings: 1 GM Danielian, Elina ARM 2407 9 2 IM Osmak, Iulija UKR 2418 8½ 3 WIM Kiolbasa, Oliwia POL 2288 8 4 IM Buksa, Nataliya UKR 2413 8 5 WGM Sargsyan, Anna M. ARM 2388 7½ 6 IM Mammadova, Gulnar AZE 2385 7½ 7 GM Khotenashvili, Bela GEO 2471 7½ 8 WIM Narva, Mai EST 2276 7½ 9 IM Arabidze, Meri GEO 2438 7½ 10 WGM Garifullina, Leya RUS 2385 7½ According to ECU Board decision and FIDE regulations, the top 10 finishers qualified for the FIDE Women’s World Cup 20222. Following the decision of the ECU Board, the best player U20, Anna Sargsyan (Armenia), earned a spot in the FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss 2021.
Huge participation at the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad
Friday, August 20th 2021 – Day one of the 2021 FIDE Online Olympiad took place today on the Chess.com’s online servers. A total of 153 teams from all over the world have signed up for the event, meaning that more than 1,000 players will participate over the next three weeks. The tournament is structured in two stages: the “Divisions stage”, in which teams are seeded into each Round-Robin Pool, based on their previous results at the OTB Batumi Chess Olympiad in 2018 and in the last year’s Online Olympiad. The winners of each division advance progressively to the next stage, where they are joined by the stronger teams, until they eventually reach the Top Division, where the best teams in the world are seeded. The top qualifiers will then battle it out in a knock-out Play-Off to decide who will succeed last year’s co-winners India and Russia. The following graphic summarizes the structure of the Division Stage. All games are played on the chess.com game server with a 15 minutes + 5 seconds increment per move time control. The team structure is all-inclusive: each squad must have six players, with a minimum of three female players and two junior players. More specifically, each team must include at least one U-20 player, at least two women and at least one U-20 female: a huge challenge to meet for many of the smaller federations. Six reserves and a team captain make up the full roster of each squad. Day 1 of the event featured the first three rounds of Division Four’s five pools (12-team Round-Robins). Most of these teams come from smaller federations and therefore, some defaults were to be expected: not only fulfilling the team criteria is a big challenge, but connection issues also have to be taken into account. Even so, the turn-out was enormous and more than 400 official Olympiad games were played. The following cool graphic gives a great idea of the event’s international representation. The schedule for this Division is as follows: rounds 1-2-3 are already in the books having been played today, while rounds 4-7 will be disputed tomorrow Saturday 21st. The final four rounds (8-11) will be played on Sunday 22nd. Games start at 08.00 UTC in Pool A and finish at 18.00 UTC in Pool E. The first three teams of each pool plus the best fourth qualifier will advance to Division Three. After three rounds in Pool A, the teams of Hong Kong and Nepal are in the lead with three clear victories. Maldives Islands is close behind with two wins and a draw. Pre-event favourite Lebanon suffered a very close loss against Nepal by 3.5-2.5 and stands in fourth place with everything to be played for in the following rounds. Three teams are tied for first place on 100% in Pool B, Malawi, Kenya and Palestine. Standings are very tight in this group, with quite a few 3.5-2.5 and 4-2 results. Many of the stronger teams are rated very similarly, around 1600 medium ELO, so we can expect a close finish. Pool C has been quickly polarized between the top and bottom teams: none less than five federations are on 100% after having played with the bottom portion of the group. In tomorrow’s rounds, all of these teams will face each other. For now, Angola, Ethiopia, Jersey, Malta and Cyprus lead the pack. Precisely from this group come two of today’s interesting chess moments. The following diagram is from the game between Albert Njau (Tanzania) against IM David Silva, Angola’s first board. White has just played 33.fxg6? and Black quickly took advantage of his opponent’s weak king by lashing out 33…e5! hitting both the rook on d4 and the pawn on h4. After 34.dxe6 Qxh4+ 35.Kg1 Rxg6! he was already winning, the main point being 36.Rg2 Qe1+ 37.Kh2 Rh6 mate. The second diagram features Jem Gurner, representing the island of Jersey, against Mohamed Khidir Abadamek, from Sudan. Black’s kingside has been seriously weakened and White launches a decisive attack. After 17.e5! fxe5 18.dxe5 the threat of Nf6-Qh7 is not easy to parry at all. Black tried 18…Qh4 but White brought in the reserves with 19.Rd4! Kg7 20.Nf6, hitting the queen. 20…Qh6 was met with 21.g3! preparing the decisive Rh4. The game finished after 21…Kh8 22.Rh4 Qg6 23.Rxh7 and mate. Only two teams have won the first three rounds outright in Pool D, namely Aruba and Suriname. Cape Verde is just slightly behind with two wins and a draw, and there are no less than three teams with four points, ready to strike back in future rounds. The strongest player of the whole division is in this group: IM Mariano Ortega Amarelle, playing for Cape Verde, boasts a huge 2482 rating, in a Division where most of the players are rated under 2000. Finally, the three top spots in Pool E will be closely contested. Puerto Rico, Haiti, Trinidad Tobago and Guyana are all on 100% after the first three rounds, scoring heavily with many 6-0 and 5-1 results. Surely, all of the world’s chess fans will be cheering on the team from Haiti: after last week’s devastating 7.2 earthquake a withdrawal would have been fully understood, but the team, headed by captain Jacques Muller Luxama, deserves praise for its fighting spirit. Pairings of the rounds, live games, PGN files and other useful information can be found on the FIDE Online Olympiad. Standings and results remain provisional until the fair play panel has submitted their daily reports. The games can be followed online on www.chess.com (Events) and @chesscom will be hosting daily commentary, anchored by Wouter Bik, with expert analysis by @AlessiaSantera1, @monkey_chess, @JenShahade and @keti_chess. Commentary can also be followed on FIDE’s own Youtube channel. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer Email: press@fide.com About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from August 20th to September 15th, the 2021 FIDE Online Olympiad is a national teams event in which all federations affiliated with FIDE have the right to participate. Team’s consist of six players with a minimum of three female players and two junior players. Played online on Chess.com, the event features two main stages: the “Divisions stage”, and the Play-offs stage. All games are played with a 15 minutes + 5 seconds increment per move time control. The full schedule can be consulted here. Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE) Chess.com as the hosting platform Partners supporting the 2021 FIDE Online Olympiad: Shenzhen Longgang District Culture,