World Team Ch (Tsaghkadzor) 18-29 April 2015

[LawrenceCooper]

Rapport-Adly from today is worth a look, if only to show two GMs improvising in the opening

http://wtcc2015.am/

[Roger de Coverly]

Rapport-Adly from today is worth a look, if only to show two GMs improvising in the opening

Frontiers of knowledge stuff, but what is White's best second move after 1. b3 a5 ? Some brief research shows the traditional response to be 2. a3 or 2. Bb2 and I'd suspect 2. a4 gives Black what he wants.

Today's game went 2. e4 which appears relatively recently as a new move. It was met by 2. .. a4. Rapport elected to play 3. b4, but 3. bxa4 Rxa4 4 Nc3 was played in one of the First Saturday tournaments, which has the merit at least of allowing White to play usual King Pawn development moves should he so wish. Naiditsch has played 2. c4 which should deter 2. .. a4, admittedly it was only in the World Blitz.

Rapport is one of those players who already has a reputation of usually thriving on chaos, is the perhaps lesser known Adly of a similar style?

[IM Jack Rudd]

Is 2.c4 any good? With the idea of following up with Nc3.

[Chris Rice]

Round 7 results:

Cuba 1½ – 2½ India
China 2 – 2 Ukraine
USA 2½ – 1½ Israel
Hungary 2½ – 1½ Egypt
Russia 1½ – 2½ Armenia

Standings:
1= China, Ukraine 11
3= Cuba, Israel, India, Armenia, Hungary 7
8= Russia, USA 6
10 Egypt 1

Round 8:

India - Armenia
Egypt - Russia
Israel - Hungary
Ukraine - USA
Cuba - China

[Chris Rice]

Round 8 and a shocking result as USA out graded on all four boards beat the joint leaders Ukraine with one round to go. This looks like handing the title to China with Ukraine the silver and Armenia (the hosts) the bronze:

Ukraine 1½ – 2½ USA
1 GM Ponomariov Ruslan 2713 ½ : ½ GM Shankland Samuel L 2661
2 GM Ivanchuk Vassily 2731 0 : 1 GM Lenderman Aleksandr 2617
3 GM Eljanov Pavel 2733 ½ : ½ GM Onischuk Alexander 2665
4 GM Kryvoruchko Yuriy 2686 ½ : ½ GM Naroditsky Daniel 2640

Cuba 1 – 3 China
1 GM Dominguez Perez Leinier 2729 ½ : ½ GM Ding Liren 2751
2 GM Bruzon Batista Lazaro 2691 0 : 1 GM Yu Yangyi 2724
3 GM Quesada Perez Yuniesky 2629 ½ : ½ GM Bu Xiangzhi 2681
4 GM Gonzalez Vidal Yuri 2557 0 : 1 GM Wei Yi 2703

India 1½ – 2½ Armenia
1 GM Harikrishna P. 2731 ½ : ½ GM Aronian Levon 2770
2 GM Sethuraman S.P. 2634 ½ : ½ GM Sargissian Gabriel 2674
3 GM Sasikiran Krishnan 2654 ½ : ½ GM Movsesian Sergei 2665
4 GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 2630 0 : 1 GM Melkumyan Hrant 2651

Egypt ½ – 3½ Russia
1 GM Amin Bassem 2634 ½ : ½ GM Grischuk Alexander 2794
2 GM Shoker Samy 2482 0 : 1 GM Tomashevsky Evgeny 2745
3 IM Ezat Mohamed 2479 0 : 1 GM Jakovenko Dmitry 2744
4 GM Adly Ahmed 2595 0 : 1 GM Vitiugov Nikita 2736

Israel 2 – 2 Hungary
1 GM Gelfand Boris 2747 ½ : ½ GM Leko Peter 2713
2 GM Smirin Ilia 2652 ½ : ½ GM Erdos Viktor 2612
3 GM Rodshtein Maxim 2667 ½ : ½ GM Almasi Zoltan 2698
4 GM Postny Evgeny 2636 ½ : ½ GM Balogh Csaba 2651

Standings after Round 8

1 China 13 (20)
2 Ukraine 11 (19)
3 Armenia 9 (15½)
4 Russia 8 (18)
5 Israel 8 (17)
6 USA 8 (16½)
7 Hungary 8 (15)
8 Cuba 7 (15½)
9 India 7 (15)
10 Egypt 1 (8½)

Final round pairings:
China - India
USA - Cuba
Hungary - Ukraine
Russia - Israel
Armenia - Egypt

[MartinCarpenter]

Looked a bit like Ivanchuk exploding under pressure, not for the first time

[John McKenna]

wtc27.jpg

http://en.chessbase.com/post/world-team ... for-bronze

[Chris Rice]

Final round 9 results and all went pretty much according to plan:

China 3 – 1 India
1 GM Ding Liren 2751 ½ : ½ GM Harikrishna P. 2731
2 GM Yu Yangyi 2724 1 : 0 GM Sethuraman S.P. 2634
3 GM Bu Xiangzhi 2681 ½ : ½ GM Sasikiran Krishnan 2654
4 GM Wei Yi 2703 1 : 0 GM Sengupta Deep 2576

USA 3 – 1 Cuba
1 GM Shankland Samuel L 2661 ½ : ½ GM Dominguez Perez Leinier 2729
2 GM Lenderman Aleksandr 2617 1 : 0 GM Bruzon Batista Lazaro 2691
3 GM Akobian Varuzhan 2622 1 : 0 GM Ortiz Suarez Isan Reynaldo 2612
4 GM Naroditsky Daniel 2640 ½ : ½ GM Gonzalez Vidal Yuri 2557

Hungary 2 – 2 Ukraine
1 GM Leko Peter 2713 ½ : ½ GM Ponomariov Ruslan 2713
2 GM Erdos Viktor 2612 ½ : ½ GM Ivanchuk Vassily 2731
3 GM Almasi Zoltan 2698 ½ : ½ GM Kryvoruchko Yuriy 2686
4 GM Balogh Csaba 2651 ½ : ½ GM Moiseenko Alexander 2697

Russia 2½ – 1½ Israel
1 GM Grischuk Alexander 2794 ½ : ½ GM Gelfand Boris 2747
2 GM Karjakin Sergey 2757 ½ : ½ GM Sutovsky Emil 2628
3 GM Tomashevsky Evgeny 2745 1 : 0 GM Rodshtein Maxim 2667
4 GM Vitiugov Nikita 2736 ½ : ½ GM Postny Evgeny 2636

Armenia 2½ – 1½ Egypt
1 GM Aronian Levon 2770 1 : 0 GM Shoker Samy 2482
2 GM Sargissian Gabriel 2674 1 : 0 IM Ezat Mohamed 2479
3 GM Movsesian Sergei 2665 0 : 1 GM Adly Ahmed 2595
4 GM Melkumyan Hrant 2651 ½ : ½ IM Farahat Ali 2389

Final Ranking
1 China 15 (23)
2 Ukraine 12 (21)
3 Armenia 11 (18)
4 Russia 10 (20½)
5 USA 10 (19½)
6 Hungary 9 (17)
7 Israel 8 (18½)
8 Cuba 7 (16½)
9 India 7 (16)
10 Egypt 1 (10)

Individual board medals:
Board 1 Aronian Levon 2770 Armenia 67% 6/9
Board 2 Lenderman Aleksandr 2617 USA 71% 5/7
Board 3 Quesada Perez Yuniesky 2629 Cuba 69% 5½/ 8
Board 4 Wei Yi 2703 China 78% 7/9

[Mick Norris]

The Americans did quite well without Nakamura, So, Robson and the retired Kamsky - gives their other players good experience to go into future Olympiads - maybe an approach we could consider in European team events

China seem a real force in team events, and Russia under-perform no matter who they pick

[Chris Rice]

Morozevich's suggestions on how to improve the Russian Team's chess results are as entertaining as his chess, completely off the wall and highly recommended!

http://chess-news.ru/en/node/18988