China Beats Russia 29-21 In Ningbo, Women's Team Impresses

Host country China defeated Russia at the Yin Zhou Cup in Ningbo with a score that left no doubt: 29-21. The Chinese women won both their matches in the last two rounds 4-1. 

July 20 is the International Day of Chess, because it was on this day that the World Chess Federation was founded in 1924 in Paris, France. On Sunday there were some festivities in Moscow, with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and GMs Sergey Karjakin and Ian Nepomniachtchi among the participants.

On the actual Day of Chess, Russia suffered a painful defeat against China at the Yin Zou Cup. After five days of chess, the Scheveningen-style match, where each player on one team plays each player on the other team, ended at 29-21 for China.

A year ago, China won its first gold medal at the 2014 Tromsø Olympiad. The women's section was won by Russia, just like the previous two editions. This week's match showed signs that the female sovereignty may come to an end at the next Olympiad.

After three rounds the Russian ladies still had a small lead, with a 3-2 win and two 2-5-2.5 ties. However, in rounds both four and five they were crushed 1-4 by the Chinese, who set the total score to 10-15. (They had also won the blitz 28-22!)

In the men's section, the Chinese team consolidated its lead on the last two days with two 2.5-2.5 ties, and so won 11-14, setting the overall score to 29-21.

Day Five

After the rest day, play continued on Sunday and the men played a fierce battle that led to four decisive results. The odd game was Svidler-Lu, who played a quick, theoretical draw in a Botvinnik Semi-Slav.

In the other games, the white player won each time. Bu Xiangzhi, who did the best in Ningbo with a 2938 performance (scoring (4.0/5), showed textbook technique in his endgame with Nikita Vitiugov — chapter: “king activity.”

Speaking of endings, Wei Yi showed the importance of versatility these days. Yes, he can play brilliant attacking games, but he knows his endings too — as can be expected from a 2700 grandmaster. His advantage was small (bishop vs knight, and a better structure).

Goryachkina surely regretted her 26th move in her game with Shen. She basically shut down her bishop on a6 for the rest of the game, and all it could do in the game was postpone the loss with the sad 43...Bc8.

Day Six

Also on the last day the two men's teams tied their mini-match, and this time they shared one win. The fun was over for Wei, who was completely outplayed by Matlakov. The latter was the top scorer for Russia with 4.0/5 and a 2895 performance.

Fedoseev tried to play a Stonewall, but Bu showed that it's not so easy against the English:

Ding was the only player in the Chinese women's team who hadn't won a game yet, but on the last day she defeated the highest-rated player on both teams: Gunina. A stunning game — note that the knight on e4 is attacked by ...f5 on move 16, but only moves away on move 30!

The total prize fund was $50,000. The Chinese men won $18,000, the Russian men $12,000, the Chinese women $12,000 and the Russian women $8,000.

2015 China-Russia | Individual Scores

Since 2001, China and Russia have played matches regularly against each other. This year the match took place for the ninth time, and was held at Yue Lake Village hotel in Ningbo, a seaport city in the northeast of the Zhejiang province in China.