Siberia – Sirius wins title!
Siberia-Sirius won with a round to spare! The super-charged team was the pre-tournament favourite, with 6 players rated more than 2700, and the remaining two team members sporting elos of 2688 and 2651 respectively! Siberia-Sirius won all of their matches…The Russian Team Championship was held in Sochi between the 2nd and the 10th of May.
Some games from the last round
gm Rozum – gm Kramnik
Russia Tch 2017.5.10
D02 (0 – 1)
gm Kamsky –gm Dubov
Russia Tch 2017.5.10
A06 (1 – 0)
gm Oparin – fm Faizrakmanov
Russia Tch 2017.5.10
B12 (1 – 0)
A passive opening by White leads to the kind of game that Kramnik just loves. Quickly White is pushed back and never has a chance to recover. In the end a passed centre pawn decides everything.
Kamsky avoids theory with a reversed QueensIndian and just when the game is complicated Black either sacrifices a piece or overlooks losing a piece. An easy mop up by Kamsky.
The advanced Caro Kann is so popular. Just when the game is about to begin, Black sacrifices material for clearly insufficient compensation. Another opening experiment down the drain.
Mamedyarov against Shomoev. The Azerbaijan grandmaster scored 4 points from 4 games in this championship and his elo moves up to #6 in the world rankings!
gm Matlakov,M – gm Geller,J
Russia Tch 2017.5.10
A46 (1 – 0)
fm Elistratov – gm Rodshtein
Russia Tch 2017.5.10
B14 (1 – 0)
gm Mamedyarov – gm Shomoev Russia Tch 2017.5.10
E14 (1 – 0)
A tough game! White builds pressure in the middlegame and creates a passed pawn that soon wins a piece. But the ending offers good drawing chances as White’s Bishop is not very effective. Probably in time trouble Black lets his guard down, and Matlakov finds a way to sacrifice his Bishop to expose his opponent’s king.
A strange game. Rodshtein, an expert on the Caro Kann, is outplayed in the opening and White wins material and should win the game. But weak middlegame play by White loses all of his advantage. Probably in time trouble, Black overplayed his hand (35…Qg5, instead of 35…Nxg2?) would have held the game.
Mamedyarov is on a roll recently and is now rated #6 in the world! Here he gets nothing from the opening, but quietly builds up chances. Black is solid in the middlegame, but his Qh5 move, trying to build up an attack, swings the game in White’s favour. The strong passed c-pawn becomes decisive.
Alexi Shirov in action against Alekseev. The game was a draw. Alexi has been having a difficult year so far. In this championship he lost only one game (the 1st round game against Rozum) but did not succeed in winning any either! His 3 points from 7 games means that he lost 4 rating points, bringing to 34 the number of rating points Alexi has lost since the beginning of the year.
gm Chigaev – gm Korobov
Russia Tch 2017.5.10
B90 (0 – 1)
fm Esipenko – gm Giri
Russia Tch 2017.5.10
E90 (0 – 1)
gm Khismatullin – im Zabotin
Russia Tch 2017.5.10
E62 (1 – 0)
A popular line of the 6.h3 Najdorf Sicilian leads to a small edge for White, until he forgets about his a-pawn. Realizing what he had done, then then goes kamikaze with f4 and then a piece sacrifice, but gets no compensation.
Imagine a FM trying to beat Giri! A dead drawn ending sees White insisting on trying to break in with his King on the Queenside. This leads to his downfall when , in time trouble no doubt, he gets snared in a clever mating net.
Nice positional crush! In a fianchetto variation of the popular KingsIndian, White starts collecting small advantages: better pawn structure and Bishop pair. Time trouble did not help and then all of a sudden Black’s game collapsed.
