Russian Championships 2020
Russian Tradition (1) — Covid (0)
Covid-19 might have been able to stop FIDE from organizing its World Championship this year, but there was just no way the Russians would tolerate postponing their traditional national championships!
According to the official website: “The event is held subject to compliance with the requirements of the authorization acts adopted as part of the fight against COVID-19 on the territory of the city of Moscow as well as with the Regulations on organisation of the official sports events in Russia in the context of maintaining risks of the COVID-19 spreading confirmed by the Russian Minister of Sport Oleg Matytsin and the Top sanitary official of Russia Anna Popova.”
As is the tradition, there are separate men’s and women’s championships, each a 12-player round robbin:
Men:
1. Mikhail Antipov, 2. Nikita Vitiugov, 3. Aleksey Goganov, 4. Ian Nepomniachtchi, 5. Vladimir Fedoseev, 6. Daniil Dubov, 7. Andrey Esipenko, 8. Maksim Chigaev, 9. Maxim Matlakov, 10. Peter Svidler, 11. Vladislav Artemiev, 12. Sergey Karjakin
Women:
1. Alina Kashlinskaya, 2. Polina Shuvalova, 3. Tatyana Getman, 4. Valentina Gunina, 5. Natalija Pogonina, 6. Leya Garifullina, 7. Alisa Galliamova, 8. Yulia Grigorieva, 9. Aleksandra Goryachkina, 10. Olga Girya, 11. Marina Guseva, 12. Alexandra Kosteniuk
The championships take place at the Moscow Central Chess Club between the 5th and 16th of this month. The Chief Arbiter is Alexander Tkachev.
The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of game with an increment of 30 seconds per move from the start of the game.
Total prize fund is 10 million rubles. (Approximately 112k euros)
Some highlights from round 1
The players were in a fighting mood in the first round, with not less than 50% of the games in the Men’s Championship registering decisive results. (Ditto for the Women’s Championship.)
Of course, that does not mean that the chess was very good, but it was certainly exciting for the spectators!
Nepomniachtchi – Matlakov
Rd1. Moscow 5.12.2020
1-0
Dubov, D – Esipenko,A
Rd1. Moscow 5.12.2020
1-0
This game saw – once again – both players playing fearlessly for a win, but Dubov — unlike Nepo in the previous game — kept his advantage in the complications when short of time. Dubov even managed a clever Queen sacrifice to reach a spectacular finish.
