European Women Chess Championship

Mar 19, 2009

Lilit Mkrtchian and Tatiana Kosintseva in tiebreaks for the Champion’s title

IM Lilit Mkrtchian of Armenia and IM Tatiana Kosintseva of Russia will decide the new European Women Chess Champion after a rapid tiebreak match that should follow later tonight or tomorrow. IM Ekaterina Kovalevskaya entered the last round as sole leader, but then played too passively with Black pieces and Kosintseva knew how to punish this complacency. Lilit Mkrtchian bravely attacked WGM Marina Romanko’s Naidorf Sicilian with the sharpest Poisoned Pawn variation. Black King remained stuck in the center and then Romanko blundered a tactical shot while trying to complete the queenside development.

Maia Lomineishvili and Natalija Pogonina fought very hard but could not produce a winner. Something similar happened in the match between two good friends, Iweta Rajlich and Monika Socko, who played an equal Rook ending to the very end when draw became inevitable. These four, joined by Kovalevskaya, IM Evgenija Ovod and WGM Tatiana Shadrina, will play tiebreak matches for the bronze medal and 3rd place money prize.

Lilit Mkrtchian

Tatiana Kosintseva

Last round results:

IM Kosintseva, Tatiana 7.5 RUS 2497 - IM Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina 8.0 RUS 2442 1-0

IM Lomineishvili, Maia 7.5 GEO 2437 - WGM Pogonina, Natalija 7.5 RUS 2467 0.5-0.5

IM Mkrtchian, Lilit 7.5 ARM 2460 - WGM Romanko, Marina 7.5 RUS 2451 1-0

IM Rajlich, Iweta 7.5 POL 2399 - GM Socko, Monika 7.5 POL 2449 0.5-0.5

GM Hoang Thanh Trang 7.0 HUN 2483 - IM Khukhashvili, Sopiko 7.0 GEO 2416 0.5-0.5

IM Paehtz, Elisabeth 7.0 GER 2455 - WGM Kovanova, Baira 7.0 RUS 2386 0.5-0.5

IM Ovod, Evgenija 7.0 RUS 2430 - WFM Bodnaruk, Anastasia 7.0 RUS 2384 1-0

IM Turova, Irina 7.0 RUS 2379 - IM Muzychuk, Mariya 7.0 UKR 2427 0.5-0.5

WGM Shadrina, Tatiana 7.0 RUS 2416 - IM Melia, Salome 7.0 GEO 2422 1-0

WGM Demina, Julia 6.5 RUS 2361 - IM Muzychuk, Anna 6.5 SLO 2540 0-1

IM Vasilevich, Irina 6.5 RUS 2340 - GM Lahno, Kateryna 6.5 UKR 2488 1-0

IM Dworakowska, Joanna 6.5 POL 2352 - IM Gaponenko, Inna 6.5 UKR 2450 0.5-0.5

IM Foisor, Cristina-Adela 6.5 ROU 2412 - WIM Paulet, Iozefina 6.5 ROU 2315 0.5-0.5

WGM Zawadzka, Jolanta 6.5 POL 2385 - WGM Botsari, Anna-Maria 6.5 GRE 2289 1-0

GM Dzagnidze, Nana 6.0 GEO 2518 - WFM Severiukhina, Zoja 6.0 RUS 2327 1-0

Ural Yekaterinburg is new Russian champion

Apr 14, 2008

Economist 1 of Saratov finished second

Round 1 / Round 2 / Round 3 / Round 4 / Round 5 / Round 6 / Round 7 / Round 8 / Round 9 / Round 10

The 2008 Russian team championship finished yesterday and Ural of Yekaterinburg raised the winner’s trophy. As predicted yesterday, Ural quickly drew their match with Finek Gazprom 3-3 and started big celebration. Economist 1, who were breathing on the neck of Ural through entire championship, came second, while TPS Saransk and Finek tied the 3rd place. Last year’s champion Tomsk 400 won last two matches, but this was enough only for the 8th place tie.

Winning team featured a powerful lineup: Teimour Radjabov 2751, Alexei Shirov 2755, Gata Kamsky 2732, Alexander Grischuk 2711, Vladimir Malakhov 2689, Vladimir Akopian 2700, Alexey Dreev 2633 and Alexander Motylev 2644.

Round 11 results:

Tomsk 400 – 64 (Moscow) 4-2

GM Alexander Morozevich – GM Boris Gelfand 1-0

GM Sergey Karjakin – GM Sergei Rublevsky draw

GM Dimitry Jakovenko – GM Pentala Harikrishna draw

GM Loek Van Wely – GM Wang Hao draw

GM Artyom Timofeev – GM Evgeny Bareev 1-0

GM Andrei Belozerov – GM Alexander Khalifman draw

Politekhnik (Nizhny Tagil) – Economist 2 (Saratov) 4-2

GM Zahar Efimenko – GM Dimitry Andreikin 1-0

GM Alexander Areshchenko – GM Alexander Evdokimov draw

GM Boris Grachev – GM Alexei Iljushin 1-0

GM Igor Lysyj – GM Alexei Korneev draw

GM Dmitry Bocharov – GM Alexander Kovchan draw

GM Dimitry Kokarev – IM Mikhail Lushenkov draw

Economist 1 (Saratov) – Spasio-Swiss (Moscow) 3.5-2.5

GM Evgeny Alekseev – GM Ruslan Ponomariov draw

GM Evgeny Tomashevsky – GM Igor Khenkin draw

GM Pavel Eljanov – GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov draw

GM Ni Hua – GM Ernesto Inarkiev 1-0

GM Alexander Moiseenko – GM Vladislav Tkachiev draw

GM Alexander Galkin – GM Denis Khismatullin draw

Ural (Yekaterinburg) – Finek Gazprom (Sankt Petersburg) 3-3

GM Teimour Radjabov – GM Peter Svidler draw

GM Gata Kamsky – GM Vadim Zvjaginsev draw

GM Vladimir Malakhov – GM Sergey Movsesjan draw

GM Vladimir Akopian – GM David Navara draw

GM Alexei Dreev – GM Nikita Vitiugov draw

GM Alexander Motylev – GM Vassily Yemelin draw

Shatar Buryatia – TPS Saransk (Saransk) 2.5-3.5

GM Vugar Gashimov – GM Vassily Ivanchuk draw

GM Bu Xiangzhi – GM Konstantin Sakaev draw

GM Anton Shomoev – GM Andrei Volotkin draw

GM Boris Avrukh – GM Emil Sutovsky draw

GM Farukh Ammonatov – GM Mikhail Kobalija draw

GM Alexander Lastin – GM Evgeny Najer 0-1

South Ural (Chelyabinsk) – SHSM (Moscow) 2-4

GM Alexander Riazantsev – GM Alexander Onischuk draw

GM Viktor Korchnoi – GM Karen Asrian draw

GM Evgeny Sveshnikov – GM Vladimir Potkin draw

GM Evgeny Romanov – GM Michal Krasenkow 0-1

IM Pavel Ponkratov – GM Boris Savchenko 0-1

IM Sergey Matsenko – GM Stanislav Novikov draw

Final Standings:

Team / Match points / Game points (click here for the team lists)

1. Ural (Yekaterinburg) 17 (39.5)

2. Economist 1 (Saratov) 15 (37.0)

3-4. TPS Saransk (Saransk) 14 (37.0)

3-4. Finek Gazprom (Sankt Petersburg) 14 (35.5)

5-6. Spasio-Swiss (Moscow) 12 (34.5)

5-6. Shatar Buryatia 12 (34.0)

7. 64 (Moscow) 11 (32.0)

8-9. SHSM (Moscow) 10 (33.5)

8-9. Tomsk 400 10 (31.0)

10. Politekhnik (Nizhny Tagil) 9 (31.0)

11. South Ural (Chelyabinsk) 5 (27.5)

12. Economist 2 (Saratov) 3 (23.5)

2008 Serbian Championship – Round 11

Mar 27, 2008

Many decided games, IM Milos Pavlovic earns GM norm

Serbian Individual Championship is taking place on 15-28 March in Mataruska Banja, near Kraljevo. After eleven rounds of spirited fighting, Dejan Pikula has singled out on the pole position, full point ahead of the competition. The seasoned Grandmaster has won six games, lost only one, and is already in huge rating gain.

IM Milos M Pavlovic has fulfilled 11-round GM norm. With 1.5 points from the remaining two games he could reach a “long” norm, thus already completing all conditions for the title. Milos had a fantastic run at the recent tournaments and is holding 60 FIDE points reserve for the April rating list. This will probably be the first time in the history of chess to have two Grandmasters with the same name. Serbia already has GM Milos Pavlovic, and he is exactly 20 years older than our challenger.

GM Dejan Pikula and IM Milos Pavlovic

FM Boban Bogosavljevic, who qualified for the event as Serbian junior champion, has to win both remaining games in order to obtain GM norm. He is scheduled to play Dejan Pikula in the last round, and we can expect to see some fireworks as both are inspired fighters.

A number of decided games is fascinating, some of them are presented bellow. The prize fund is 5.000 Euros, and all players have received stimulation prior to the competition.

Round 11 standings:

1. GM Dejan Pikula 2524 8.0

2-3. GM Bojan Vuckovic 2556 and GM Ivan Ivanisevic 2649 7.0

4-5. GM Igor Miladinovic 2604 and IM Milos M Pavlovic 2457 6½

6-8. FM Boban Bogosavljevic 2492, GM Aleksandar Kovacevic 2575 and GM Milos Perunovic 2570 6.0

9-10. GM Branko Damljanovic 2582 and GM Robert Markus 2575 5½

11. GM Nikola Sedlak 2568 5.0

12. GM Sinisa Drazic 2489 3½

13. IM Dejan Leskur 2468 2½

14. IM Sasa Velickovic 2401 2.0