16 December 2015
Sergey Karjakin Finishes Off Team China
The final score of the match is 5-0 in Russia's favor.
Russian national team defeated China in a friendly match that was divided in two parts. The first half was played in July and ended with the 4-0 score in favor of Russia – Sergey Karjakin won four matches, knocking out four Chinese players. The second part took place in Harbin on December 12-17.
Grandmaster Wang Yue was the first opponent of Karjakin. Both classical control games ended in a draw, and then the Russian confidently won both blitz games.
Apart from Wang Yue, the Chinese team included the winners of the Chess Olympiad – Ding Liren, Yu Yangyi, Ni Hua, and Wei Yi.
Sergey Karjakin expressed his satisfaction: “I am very happy to be able to defeat such a strong team as China”, told Sergey to the TASS News Agency. “Chinese side developed an interesting format, playing a single match at a time, and replacing the loser with another player of his team. My teammates Dmitry Andreikin, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Evgeny Tomashevsky, and Alexander Morozevich were unable to join the fight, as I won all five matches myself.”
Each match consisted of two classical control games, and proceeded to a blitz tie-break in case of a tie. Should both blitz games also end in a draw, the players continued with an Armageddon game.
