 "Chess (#1172)")
Siberia and Nona won the Euro Open and Women's team championships, respectively. Siberia took 13 points from 7 matches, dropping one draw in the last round to Obiettivo of Italy. SOCAR (Azerbaijan) took silver and Mednyi Vsadnik (Russia) took bronze - both scored 11 points with one loss each, to Siberia, and a draw against each other in the last round.
The quality was excellent throughout. Vladimir Kramnik (4.5/5) had a terrific result on top board for Siberia with wins against Ian Nepomiachtchi, Veselin Topalov, Peter Svidler and Vassily Ivanchuk. Michael Adams on Board 4 for SOCAR scored 5/6 beating Sergei Rublevsky, Li Chao and Maxim Matlakov. Anish Giri and Hikaru Nakamura both lost a bushel of Elo. Kramnik jumps to #4 on the November list, up five places. Nakamura drops from #2 to #5. Topalov lost rating points but moved up from #3 to #2 due to Nakamura's poor showing.
Nona (Georgia) had a perfect score - 14/14. It was an all-Georgian team with Nana Dzagnidze, Bela Khotenashvili, Lela Javakhishvili, Nino Batsiashvili and Miranda Mikadze.
Giri must now stave off a potential challenge for the last Candidates slot from Kramnik. This slot will go to the player with the highest averaged rating between January-December 2015. The Dutch GM currently leads on that metric. But another surge from Kramnik, or a poor result from Giri could push him out.
Wesley So leads the Bilbao Grand Slam Masters after three rounds. So has won the only decisive game so far in the four-player double round robin, beating Ding Liren. Defending champion Viswanathan Anand, and Anish Giri have only scored draws.
So-Ding was fascinating. It involved a defensive queen sacrifice and an unusual material balance with three minor pieces versus a queen. It's hard to coordinate three minors but So managed that impressively.
Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (White: So Vs Black: Ding,Liren, Bilbao 2015). Black's sacrificed a piece. After 32. Ba4 Nf4!? 33. gxf4 Qh4 or 33. Bxf4 exf4 there is utter confusion. So played:
32. Qe8+ Kg7 33.Qxd8! Rxd8 34.Rxc7+ Bd7 35.Rxd7+ Rxd7 [ not 35. Bxd7?? Kh8!] 36.Bxd7 gxh3 37.Kh2 Rb7 38.Be6 Nf8 39.Bf5 Qh5 40.Ng4 Nd7. Time control. White is winning though he's nominally down in material.
Play continued 41.Bh6+ Kh8 42.Nde3 Rc7 43.Bxd7 Rxd7 44.Rxf3 Rf7 45.Rf5 Rxf5 46.exf5 Qf7. The minors escort f5 home. Black also queens but he's outgunned after 47.Bg5 b5 48.Nh6 Qf8 49.f6 Kh7 50.Nef5 Kg6 51.Bh4 e4 52.f7 e3 53.Be7 e2 54.Nh4+ Kh7 55.Bxf8 e1Q 56.Bxd6 Qf2+ 57.Kxh3 Qf1+ 58.Kg4 Qc4+ 59.Bf4 Qe2+ 60.Nf3 (1-0). The queen is useless.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
