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Russians have been known to joke that their billionaire oligarchs buy European football teams, while the millionaire oligarchs "shop" locally. The Russian Teams chess championships is well-supported because owning a winning chess team confers serious bragging rights.
This edition saw Malachite of Sverdlovsk winning comfortably. The line up was Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Grischuk, Peter Leko, Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Malakhov, Alexander Motylev, Igor Lysyj and Victor Bologan. Grischuk knocked up a fabulous 6 pts from 7 games with a 2900-plus performance. This pulls him into third place on the live ratings, overtaking Viswanathan Anand. The women's version was won by Ugra from Khanty Mansiysk.
In the ongoing Women's Grand Prix at Khanty Mansiysk, Hou Yifan leads with 6 points from 7 rounds. Anna Muzychuk is in second with 5. This 12-player event is the fourth of the cycle and the standalone prize fund is Euro 60,000. Hou is performing at 2775 levels so far. The 20-year-old world champion has been playing very impressively but the surprise has been Olga Girya who is in sole third place with 4.5 points.
Romain Edouard won the Dubai Open with a great score of 8 from 9 and a 2850 rating performance. Yuriy Kuzubov and Eduardo Iturrizaga tied for 2-3 with 7 each. Abhijeet Gupta, who has just launched his own website (www.abhijeetgupta.com) , was among the players tied for 4-9 with 6.5 points each.
In other good news for India, Aravindh Chithambaram (born Sept 1999), has logged his second GM norm. He has also completed his IM title though that is incidental for a talent of his dimensions. In the last five months, the 14-year-old has logged five IM norms, two GM norms and gained over 100 Elo. It cannot be long before Chithambaram completes the GM title - he needs one more norm and about 60 rating points.
The Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY ( White: Nepomniachtchi Vs Svidler Russian Team Chps 2014) is an example of extraordinary prep. Black innovated on move 10 in a Scotch Opening and he's hitting b2. What follows is astounding.
White played the best 12.e6! Qxb2 The alternative 12.--fe6 13. Be5 Rg8 14. c5!? Qxe4+ 15. Nxe4 looks good for white. Play continued 13.exd7+ Kxd7 14.Qd4+ Nd5! Fantastic - black hits c3 - anything else is met by Rb1.
The Kt sac forces 15.cxd5 Qxa1+ 16.Kd2 Bxf1 If 16...Qb2+? 17.Kd1 Bxf1 18.dxc6+ Kxc6 19. Qd5+ Kb6 20. Na4+. Black avoids the Kt fork on b2 but he cannot avoid perpetual 17.dxc6+ Kxc6 18.Qd5+ Kb6 19.Na4+ Ka6 20.Qc6+ Ka5 21.Bxc7+ Kb4 22.Qe4+ Ka3 23.Qf3+ Kxa2 24.Nc3+ Ka3 25.Na2+ Ka4 26.Qc6+ Ka3 27.Qf3+ Ka4 28.Qc6+ Ka3 29.Qf3+ (½-½). Kxa2 will be met by Qd5+. I'd love to know clock times since that would indicate how much of this was prep.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
