Soccer & Simul at Saratov Governor's Cup

Friday was a rest day at the Governor's Cup in Saratov. Some of the participants decided to spend the day on their own; others met at the university to play soccer; while three grandmasters agreed to face amateurs over the board.

When one is playing in such a tough 11-round supertournament, it makes sense to save as much energy as possible. A rest day is meant to be spent relaxing. Nonetheless, Alexander Moiseenko, Evgeny Tomashevsky and Pavel Eljanov decided to make Saratov's chess fans happy and hold a simul. Each of the GMs was challenged by 10 opponents. Some of the players were relatively experienced - 1st category or candidate masters. Therefore, it didn't come as a surprise that not all the maestros achieved perfect victories. Evgeny Tomashevsky got 10/10, while Pavel Eljanov and Alexander Moiseenko scored 7.5 and 7 respectively.

The simul took place at the SGSEU chess club (pictured below):

After the 3-hour simul the grandmasters proceeded to the sports hall to play soccer. Alexander Morozeevich, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Evgeny Alekseev, Alexander Moiseenko, Pavel Eljanov, Ni Hua - these brave people decided to spend the rest day in an active way.

Alexander Morozevich is a fierce attacker

Evgeny Tomashevsky arrived late and is anxious to find asap how to join the game. The goalkeeper is tournament director Dr. Alexei Vetrov

Goal!

Pavel Eljanov on the defensive

"Economist" team in action

The soccer game was very competitive and exciting. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, except for Alexander Moiseenko's glasses (luckily enough, they didn't get broken, were just bended a little).

The 7th round will be played tomorrow.

All the photos are (C) Natalia Pogonina