Big Wins For China, India At World Team Championship Opener
India and China started with 3.5-0.5 wins at the World Team Championship, which took off today in Astana, Kazakhstan. Ukraine was held to 2-2 by the USA in the women's section.
The World Team Championship is organized by the Kazakhstan Chess Federation under the auspices of FIDE. It takes place March 4-14 in the Astana International Campus (AIC), which is part of the Astana International Financial Center.
Astana also hosted the World Rapid and Blitz Championship in 2012. It has been the capital of Kazakhstan since 1997; before that the capital was Almaty (Alma-Ata), the largest city of the country.
The World Team Championships consist of two round-robin tournaments (open and women's) of 10 teams each, with four players on each team, one reserve player and one coach. It is an all-play-all of nine rounds. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, 30 minutes to the end, and 30 seconds increment per move starting from move one.
At a pre-tournament press conference, Russia's top GM Sergey Karjakin said: "It is a lucky place for me, as I became the world champion in rapid chess here in 2012 and took bronze in the blitz."
The local player and rising star IM Zhansaya Abdumalik was optimistic about her team's chances: "Kazakhstan can achieve something very special here. Russia, China and the Ukraine are certainly favorite[s], but the gap with other teams is quite small, so anything can happen."
Open section
The local organizers had some hiccups getting the tournament off the ground. For example, the Egyptian players had to spend hours at the airport getting through customs as something was wrong with their visa invitation.
Before the start of the round, players were unaware of the location of the toilets and it was rather noisy. The playing hall is also quite small and so captains have little space to walk around and follow the games of their own team closely.
It should be mentioned that only at the end of January a deal was signed between the Kazakhs and FIDE, so effectively there were only five weeks to organize everything. And as volunteers were quickly organized by the chief arbiter, within an hour everything was running smoothly.
The qualification path for the teams. Since France and Poland declined participation, Sweden plays instead as the next top Olympiad performer.
The favorites got off to a good start today. There were no real upsets, except for the top board in England vs Kazakhstan, where Rinat Jumabayev managed to beat Michael Adams as Black. With David Howell and Gawain Jones scoring wins, England did win the match after all.
| Bo. | Fed | 5 | England | Rtg | - | Fed | 6 | Kazakhstan | Rtg | 2½:1½ |
| 5/1 | GM | Adams, Michael (w) | 2708 | - | GM | Jumabayev, Rinat (b) | 2609 | 0 - 1 | ||
| 5/2 | GM | Mcshane, Luke J (b) | 2661 | - | GM | Ismagambetov, Anuar (w) | 2545 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 5/3 | GM | Howell, David W L (w) | 2693 | - | IM | Makhnev, Denis (b) | 2476 | 1 - 0 | ||
| 5/4 | GM | Jones, Gawain C B (b) | 2681 | - | GM | Kostenko, Petr (w) | 2466 | 1 - 0 |
China and Russia should be the favorites to win the main championship, and both started with wins. Playing without their top aces Mamedyarov and Radjabov (and board one Arkadij Naiditsch resting), Azerbaijan was too weak for the top guns from China.
| Bo. | Fed | 4 | China | Rtg | - | Fed | 7 | Azerbaijan | Rtg | 3½: ½ |
| 4/1 | GM | Ding, Liren (w) | 2812 | - | GM | Mamedov, Rauf (b) | 2701 | 1 - 0 | ||
| 4/2 | GM | Yu, Yangyi (b) | 2761 | - | GM | Guseinov, Gadir (w) | 2664 | 1 - 0 | ||
| 4/3 | GM | Wei, Yi (w) | 2733 | - | GM | Safarli, Eltaj (b) | 2662 | 1 - 0 | ||
| 4/4 | GM | Bu, Xiangzhi (b) | 2731 | - | GM | Abasov, Nijat (w) | 2627 | ½ - ½ |
All three wins were scored in long endgame grinds, where the Chinese GMs showed their prowess and, as the Germans call it, sitzfleisch. Wei Yi's game saw a funny dance of four knights and later on, at move 40, a nasty trick that Eltaj Safarli fell for.
| Bo. | Fed | 2 | Iran | Rtg | - | Fed | 9 | Russia | Rtg | 1½:2½ |
| 2/1 | GM | Maghsoodloo, Parham (w) | 2673 | - | GM | Karjakin, Sergey (b) | 2753 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 2/2 | GM | Idani, Pouya (b) | 2604 | - | GM | Nepomniachtchi, Ian (w) | 2771 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 2/3 | GM | Tabatabaei, M.Amin (w) | 2600 | - | GM | Andreikin, Dmitry (b) | 2725 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 2/4 | GM | Firouzja, Alireza (b) | 2657 | - | GM | Artemiev, Vladislav (w) | 2736 | 0 - 1 |
Iran can be proud of its effort against Russia as it held three 2700 GMs to a draw, once again demonstrating the talent that exists in the country. It was the Gibraltar winner Vladislav Artemiev who celebrated his 21st birthday by bringing home the two match points against the speed chess demon Alireza Firouzja.
| Bo. | Fed | 1 | India | Rtg | - | Fed | 10 | Sweden | Rtg | 3½: ½ |
| 1/1 | GM | Adhiban, B. (w) | 2683 | - | GM | Grandelius, Nils (b) | 2694 | 1 - 0 | ||
| 1/2 | GM | Sasikiran, Krishnan (b) | 2678 | - | GM | Blomqvist, Erik (w) | 2488 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 1/3 | GM | Ganguly, Surya Shekhar (w) | 2633 | - | GM | Smith, Axel (b) | 2487 | 1 - 0 | ||
| 1/4 | GM | Sethuraman, S.P. (b) | 2637 | - | IM | Johansson, Linus (w) | 2479 | 1 - 0 |
With three 2400 players on the team, for Sweden it's mostly going to be about the experience, and enjoying the event without having any serious ambitions. The big loss against India is therefore not surprising. On top board, Baskaran Adhiban found a great move vs Nils Grandelius.
Egypt, playing as the African champion, will also have a hard time in this event. It started with a loss to a United States team that was playing without any of it top grandmasters.
| Bo. | Fed | 3 | Egypt | Rtg | - | Fed | 8 | United States of America | Rtg | 1 : 3 |
| 3/1 | GM | Amin, Bassem (w) | 2709 | - | GM | Swiercz, Dariusz (b) | 2655 | 0 - 1 | ||
| 3/2 | GM | Adly, Ahmed (b) | 2611 | - | GM | Sevian, Samuel (w) | 2642 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 3/3 | IM | Fawzy, Adham (w) | 2461 | - | GM | Onischuk, Alexander (b) | 2647 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 3/4 | GM | Hesham, Abdelrahman (b) | 2450 | - | GM | Izoria, Zviad (w) | 2603 | 0 - 1 |
The Polish grandmaster Dariusz Swiercz has switched federations and is representing his new country for the first time in a team event. He survived his first big test wonderfully by beating Africa's only 2700 player, Bassem Amin:
Round two pairings: Sweden–Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan–England, US –China, Russia–Egypt, India–Iran.
Women's section
The women's tournament started with a small upset, with the USA (playing without Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih) tied with Ukraine, who gave Anna Muzychuk a rest.
| Bo. | Fed | 5 | Rtg | - | Fed | 6 | Ukraine | Rtg | 2 : 2 | |
| 5/1 | WGM | Abrahamyan, Tatev (w) | 2377 | - | GM | Muzychuk, Mariya (b) | 2560 | 0 - 1 | ||
| 5/2 | FM | Yip, Carissa (b) | 2279 | - | GM | Ushenina, Anna (w) | 2443 | 1 - 0 | ||
| 5/3 | WGM | Foisor, Sabina-Francesca (w) | 2276 | - | IM | Gaponenko, Inna (b) | 2427 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 5/4 | WCM | Wu, Rochelle (b) | 2120 | - | IM | Buksa, Nataliya (w) | 2416 | ½ - ½ |
FM Carissa Yip was the big hero for America as she took down the former women's world champion Anna Ushenina as Black. It was nice how she got her King's Indian "bad" bishop into play:
Whereas Russia expectedly defeated Kazakhstan (the score was 3-1), Armenia crushed Egypt 4-0 and China beat Hungary 3.5-0.5, one more match ended in 2-2.
| Bo. | Fed | 3 | India | Rtg | - | Fed | 8 | Georgia | Rtg | 2 : 2 |
| 3/1 | IM | Karavade, Eesha (w) | 2357 | - | GM | Khotenashvili, Bela (b) | 2474 | ½ - ½ | ||
| 3/2 | WGM | Soumya, Swaminathan (b) | 2401 | - | IM | Arabidze, Meri (w) | 2392 | 1 - 0 | ||
| 3/3 | IM | Padmini, Rout (w) | 2332 | - | GM | Batsiashvili, Nino (b) | 2454 | 0 - 1 | ||
| 3/4 | WGM | Kulkarni, Bhakti (b) | 2322 | - | IM | Melia, Salome (w) | 2385 | ½ - ½ |
Nino Batsiashvili's Hippopotamus initially didn't work so well, and Padmini Rout was in full control until she went for a wrong liquidation to a rook endgame.
Round two pairings: Egypt–Ukraine, Hungary–USA, Georgia–China, Kazakhstan–India, Armenia–Russia.
You can follow the games of the tournament live easily at Chess.com/events.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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