Karjakin & Nepomniachtchi lead Russian Championship
Peter Svidler dropped to shared third place at the 63rd Russian Championship Superfinal in Moscow. On Monday he lost to Ian Nepomniachtchi, who now shares the lead with Sergey Karjakin with two rounds to go.General info
The Superfinal of the 63rd Russian Chess Championship for men is held in Moscow at the Central Chess Club, from 10 to 22 December. Alexander Grischuk (2771) defends his title against Sergei Karjakin (2760), Dmitry Jakovenko (2726), Peter Svidler (2722), Ian Nepomniachtchi (2722), Vladimir Malakhov (2720), Nikita Vitiugov (2709), Evgeny Tomashevsky (2699), Igor Kurnosov (2676), Vadim Zvjaginsev (2676), Denis Khismatullin (2659) and Vladimir Potkin (2646). The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes to end of the game with 30 second increment.Rounds 7-9
The Russian Championship continues to see a mixture of great fights at the highest level and very short draws. Well, in these last three rounds there was actually just one, but it was the shortest so far. Zvjaginsev and Grischuk from round 9 lasted 12 moves, including the repetition. In the same round Tomashevsky-Kurnosov was not much either, but at least this one looks like a real game.On Saturday there was quite a good round with three decisive games. Grischuk ground down Malakhov nicely in a King's Indian ending while Nepomniachtchi outplayed Zvjaginsev, whose openings are just not good enough to fight for top places. Svidler held his own against Potkin in a theoretical Grünfeld. What impressed more: Khismatullin did the same against Karjakin in a Philidor.The Grünfeld is quite hot in cold Moscow. Nepomniachtchi used it in round 8 to draw with Jakovenko in a hyper-sharp game. The same hotness counts for the Berlin Wall, as even Najdorf expert Sergei Karjakin played it several times this year. His ending against Kurnosov was just superb - the winning line at the end is completely approved by the computer.And so Karjakin and Svidler were leading the pack after eight rounds, but yesterday Nepomniachtchi switched places with Svidler. He proved up to date with the latest theory of the Scotch, and quickly got a very promising ending. Then all White had to do was collecting Black's queenside pawns. Karjakin could have grabbed sole lead, but Jakovenko was just too solid.Today the penultimate round starts at 15.00 local time (14.00 CET - live here); tomorrow the 11th and last round will start three hours earlier.
Games rounds 7-9
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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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