Exhilarating Chess From Poikovsky
The tournament is only three rounds old, but already some exhilarating chess has been played at the 16th Karpov Tournament in Poikovsky, Russia.
Photos © Evgenya Vashenyaka courtesy of the Russian Chess Federation.
This year the annual tournament named after 12th world champion Anatoly Karpov has reached its 16th anniversary edition. As always, it is held in Poikovsky.
Located in the Nefteyugansk region of the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous area (a.k.a. somewhere in Siberia 
), Poikovsky is named after the nearby river Poyka. The population is close to 30,000 and the main economic drive is the extraction of oil and gas.
Fifteen years ago local authorities decided that a big chess tournament would do the region well. A year later a chess school for children was opened which was, like the tournament, named after Anatoly Karpov.
Wijk aan Zee tournament director Jeroen van den Berg!
As in just about every previous edition, the players field in the tournament is a nice mixture of both solid and more aggressive players. The full list:
Alexei Shirov (2712), Alexander Morozevich (2711), Anton Korobov (2700), Viktor Laznicka (2676), Igor Lysyj (2671), Ernesto Inarkiev (2660), Ilia Smirin (2655), Denis Khismatullin (2651), Emil Sutovsky (2635) and Viktor Bologan (2607).
Fifteen games have been played so far, and some of them were truly great fights. Let's start with this one from the first round:
Sutovsky's aggressive, daring play was rewarded once again in the second round. With lot number one he got to play with the white pieces again, and with Alexei Shirov as an opponent the game was destined to be a fascinating one:
In the second round Inarkiev won an excellent game against Laznicka, but the next day the Russian GM lost to 2014 russian champion Igor Lysyj, who played his queen to b3 no less than seven times! Is that a record for Tim Krabbé?
Alexander Morozevich played several times, but never won in Poikovsky. Last year he had a great start, but this time around he took off with two straight losses. Warmed up, his third-round win over Smirin wasn't bad at all:
Karpov Tournament 2015 | Round 3 Standings
| # | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Korobov | 2700 | 2783 |  |
½ | ½ | 1 | 2.0/3 | 3.00 | ||||||
| 2 | Lysyj | 2671 | 2792 | ½ | |
1 | ½ | 2.0/3 | 3.00 | ||||||
| 3 | Bologan | 2607 | 2807 | ½ | |
½ | 1 | 2.0/3 | 2.50 | ||||||
| 4 | Sutovsky | 2635 | 2800 | |
0 | 1 | 1 | 2.0/3 | 2.00 | ||||||
| 5 | Laznicka | 2676 | 2650 | 1 | |
0 | ½ | 1.5/3 | 2.50 | ||||||
| 6 | Inarkiev | 2660 | 2686 | 0 | 1 | |
½ | 1.5/3 | 2.00 | ||||||
| 7 | Smirin | 2655 | 2566 | ½ | ½ | |
0 | 1.0/3 | 1.75 | ||||||
| 8 | Khismatullin | 2651 | 2531 | ½ | 0 | |
½ | 1.0/3 | 1.50 | ||||||
| 9 | Shirov | 2712 | 2529 | 0 | ½ | ½ | |
1.0/3 | 1.25 | ||||||
| 10 | Morozevich | 2711 | 2534 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
1.0/3 | 1.00 |
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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