IMSA Elite Mind Games: Speed Chess In China

The IMSA Elite Mind Games were held from February 25th to March 3th in Huai'an, China. Like in previous years the players battled in blitz, rapid and the Basque system, playing two games at the same time against one opponent.

Huai'an is a city of close to 5 million inhabitants in central Jiangsu province of Eastern China. Its history goes a long way: the earliest settlers lived there 5000 to 6000 years ago.

This year it was the location of the annual Mind Games. The tournament was hosted by IMSA organization and the Sports management center of Chinese Sports General Administration and organized by the Jiangsu Sports Bureau and the Huai'an government.

A total of 143 players and 77 technical officers from 43 countries participated in varieties of board games including bridge, go, chess, Chinese chess and draughts. In total there were 23 individual events divided into five categories.

Furthermore, another solitaire game called "Guan dan", which originated from the Huai'an province, was played for the first time as a demonstration game.

The Mind Games chess event is always a bit of an odd tournament in the calendar for its irregular formats and somewhat unclear status. But we get to see lots of strong players playing chess, and that might be enough, right?

Vassily Ivanchuk always provides good entertainment! | Photo courtesy of FIDE.

This year except for local hero Ding Liren no top 10 players participated and that's easily explained with the Candidates’ Tournament just around the corner. Especially Levon Aronian, who loves China, must have been disappointed about the scheduling of this event.

However, lots of strong players just below that top 10 were there, such as Pentala Harikrishna, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Evgeny Tomashevsky.

The chess part started with a regular rapid tournament played over seven rounds, paired according to the Swiss system. The rate of play was 20 minutes plus 10 seconds increment.

Two players finished on five points: Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan. The players played just one Armageddon game to decided matters. Mamedyarov won the toss, chose white (with 5 minutes vs 4 for Black) and won a great fight:

The decisive Armageddon game. | Photo courtesy of FIDE.

For the women the situation was different: lots of top players participated. Some of them had traveled to China right after their participation in the Tehran Women's Grand Prix.

However, it was not one of these top players who topped the rapid rankings. WGM Tan Zhonyi was in fantastic shape, started with 5.0/5, then lost to Kateryna Lagno of Russia but finished with another win against Anna Ushenina of Ukraine. The Chinese lady ended 1.5 points ahead of the pack.

Here's how she beat Valentina Gunina of Russia:

A great result for WGM Tan Zhonyi. | Photo courtesy of FIDE.

The blitz tournament (3 minutes + 2 second, 30 rounds) was another success for Azerbaijan: this one was won by Rauf Mamedov, who scored 19.5/30. It's a result that might seem surprising for a player who is not in the top 100 of the classical rating list. However, Mamedov is currently the world #10(!) in the blitz ratings; a true specialist.

Against Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez he won an all-or-nothing game as Black:

Mamedov's White game against David Navara saw a remarkable opening phase:

Rauf Mamedov (l.) in his game with Ding Liren. | Photo courtesy of FIDE.

In the women section it was Lagno who finished sole first with 21.5/30, half a point more than her compatriot Valentina Gunina. Lagno is an 1.e4 player and it's impressive how she deals with sidelines like in the following game.

It's interesting to see that the Chinese organizers maintain the third section: the Basque System, where players play two games at the same time against one opponent. It hasn't really caught up at other events, but the Chinese apparently quite like it.

Like the rapid, this was a Swiss event but only five rounds of double games. Also here the rate of play was 20 minutes plus 10 seconds increment.

Here, finally the strongest player of classical chess emerged victoriously. It was Ding Liren who won the tournament with 7.0/10, a point more than four grandmasters. In the first round he refuted Vassily Ivanchuk's 28.d4 nicely.

Ding impressively defeated Tomashevsky 2-0. Here's his black game:

Tomashevsky vs Ding Liren over two boards. | Photo courtesy of FIDE.

Also in the women's section one of the favorites took the gold medal: Alexandra Kosteniuk. She reached 7.0/10 as well, half a point more than Nana Dzagnidze. Their mutual match was won 1.5-0.5 by Kosteniuk, who won her black game:

Alexandra Kosteniuk won the gold medal. | Photo courtesy of FIDE.