Generations Clash In Moscow's Nutcracker Tournament
The traditional Nutcracker tournament is under way in Moscow, Russia. After four rounds of classical chess, "experience" (the Kings) has a tiny lead over "youth" (the Princes).
Another edition of the annual Nutcracker event was opened on Friday December 16 at the Central Chess House on the Gogolevsky Boulevard in Moscow. The tournament is supported by the Ladya Foundation (for social, educational, innovative and sports projects), the Russian Chess Federation, and Oleg Skvortsov.
Alongside his Zurich Chess Classic (the next will be in April), it's good to see that Skvortsov continues to support this event as well.
The list of guests at the opening ceremony revealed a status of class and dignity for this tournament. For starters, the world's oldest grandmaster was there: Yuri Averbakh, now 94.
You might recognize Averbakh in the middle here. | Photo Vladimir Barsky.
Other names present were the 12th world champion, Anatoly Karpov, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, and also grandmasters such as Ian Nepomniachtchi and Yuri Dokhoian.
As always, the tournament follows the Scheveningen system with one member of each team playing all members of the other team. This year, there's the traditional clash between "Kings" and "Princes," but there's also a "Queens" vs "Princesses" match.
In our reports, we will focus on the Kings vs Princes section.
Kings vs Princes
| # | Fed | Title | Kings | Rtg | # | Fed | Title | Princes | Rtg | |
| 1 | GM | Boris Gelfand | 2725 | 1 | GM | Vladimir Fedoseev | 2667 | |||
| 2 | GM | Alexander Morozevich | 2676 | 2 | GM | Daniil Dubov | 2660 | |||
| 3 | GM | Alexei Shirov | 2673 | 3 | GM | Vladislav Artemiev | 2653 | |||
| 4 | GM | Alexey Dreev | 2652 | 4 | GM | Grigoriy Oparin | 2616 |
Queens vs Princesses
| # | Fed | Title | Queens | Rtg | # | Fed | Title | Princesses | Rtg | |
| 1 | IM | Alisa Galliamova | 2443 | 1 | WIM | Polina Shuvalova | 2383 | |||
| 2 | IM | Ekaterina Kovalevskaya | 2430 | 2 | WFM | Aleksandra Dimitrova | 2319 | |||
| 3 | IM | Elena Zaiatz | 2313 | 3 | WIM | Elizaveta Solozhenkina | 2269 | |||
| 4 | WGM | Galina Strutinskaia | 2266 | 4 | Aleksandra Maltsevskaya | 2251 |
Classical chess games were played on December 17-20, and on December 21 and 22, the players will move to rapid chess. The winning teams will be determined by the total number of points scored by the players. For the classical part, it's 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw, and 0 for a loss. It's 1, ½ and 0 respectively for rapid.
Day 1
On the first day, the Princes and the Queens took a small lead. Both teams drew three games and won one, scoring 5-3 and 10-6 in total.
In the men's section, it was Grigoriy Oparin (19) who defeated Alexey Dreev (47) from a quiet English opening. The line has more venom than you'd expect.
Oleg Skvortsov making the first move on the Dubov-Shirov board. | Photo Eteri Kublashvili.
Day 2
The next day, the Kings leveled the score. Again three games ended in draws, and it was Dreev who got a quick revenge, in his beloved Caro-Kann versus Vladimir Fedoseev (21). The positional exchange sacrifice was instructive.
Dreev was the "main character" in the first two rounds. | Photo Eteri Kublashvili.
The Princesses defeated the Queens 5-3 as well, so in both matches the score was 8-8.
Day 3
The Kings continued well and also won the third round 5-3. The Princess defeated the Queens 6-2 on this day.
This time it was Alexei Shirov (44) who scored the decisive point for the Kings. The wizard from Latvia demolished Fedoseev's Berlin Wall surprisingly quickly.
A Berlin Ending in the making. | Photo Vladimir Barsky.
Day 4
The fourth day of play saw four draws among the men, whereas the Queens defeated the Princesses 7-1. This leads to the following standings in the men's section before the players go into the rapid portion:
| # | Kings | CR | P1 | P2 | P3 | P4 | P1 | P2 | P3 | P4 | P1 | P2 | P3 | P4 | Pts |
| K1 | Morozevich | 2676 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| K2 | Gelfand | 2722 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| K3 | Dreev | 2652 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| K4 | Shirov | 2673 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | ||||||||
| Total | 17 |
| # | Princes | CR | K1 | K2 | K3 | K4 | K1 | K2 | K3 | K4 | K1 | K2 | K3 | K4 | Pts |
| P1 | Fedoseev | 2667 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||
| P2 | Artemiev | 2653 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| P3 | Oparin | 2616 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | ||||||||
| P4 | Dubov | 2660 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| Total | 15 |
Games from TWIC.
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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