Russian Championships Higher League

The 'Higher League' Russian Chess Championships is currently underway in Taganrog, Russia.

The championships run from 15-26 June and serve as a qualification event to take part in the full championships later this year (some top players are seeded directly to the finals, so don't need to qualify).

The competition is probably the strongest national chess championship qualifying event you are likely to find!

Separate men's and women's competitions are being held, both using the Swiss format, with 11 rounds for the 62 men and 9 rounds for the 34 women.

The prize fund totals 2,500,000 rubles for the men (approx 89,000 USD) and 500,000 rubles for the women (approx 18,000 USD).

After four rounds Sergey Volkov and Evgeny Alekseev (pictured) lead on 3½ points, while Valentina Gunina has the sole lead after three rounds of the women's event with a perfect 3/3.

The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes to finish the game, and a 30 second increment from the start.

The rounds start at 15:00 local time (11:00 UTC, 07:00 Eastern in the US), and the official coverage can be found here (in Russian). The direct link for the live games broadcast is here.

The top of the men's standings after four rounds:

The top women's standings after three rounds: