2 May 2016
Sensations of Local Magnitude
The closing day of the Russian Junior Classical Chess Championships in the photographic report of Vladimir Barsky.
This year almost as many as one and a half thousand players have gathered to participate in the classical chess event. Two enormous halls - a sports and a musical ones - were crammed with chess tables to capacity for children and teenagers to play in two Leagues and in two shifts. It goes without saying that close performance followup of such a huge number of young talents is impossible simply from the physical point of view. Every group is likely to have had its new "starlets" come to the forefront, while certain favorite players, on the contrary, performed below their capabilities this time around. Colonel Skalozub (from famous Alexander Griboyedov's comedy Woe from Wit) would have perhaps expressed it all in a single phrase: "Sensations of Local Magnitude". His reasoning would have been undoubtedly well-founded since the top lines in tournament tables have been occupied by players already well-known to all chess specialists. Below given are triumvirates of prizewinners at various age groups of the Russian championships:
U11 girls: 1st - Margarita Zvereva (Moscow), 2nd - Evita Cherepanova (The Rostov Oblast), 3rd - Galina Mikheeva (the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug)
U11 boys: 1. Daniil Maneluk (The Tula Oblast), 2. Volodar Murzin (the Sverdlovsk Oblast), 3. Ilya Makoveev (Moscow)
U13 girls: 1. Leya Garifullina (the Sverdlovsk Oblast), 2. Maria Sovina (the Ivanovo Oblast), 3. Mariya Yakimova (The Republic of Tatarstan)
U13 boys: 1. Valery Skatchkov (the Samara Oblast), 2. Stefan Pogosyan (Moscow), 3. Demyan Shumilov (the Arkhangelsk Oblast)
U15 girls: 1. Aleksandra Maltsevskaya (the Rostov Oblast), 2. Kamaliya Bulatova (Republic of Tatarstan), 3. Varvara Budnikova (the Samara Oblast)
U15 boys: 1. Semen Lomasov (Moscow), 2. Bogdan Kalabukhov (the Novosibirsk Oblast), 3. Vitaly Gurvich (Moscow)
U17 girls: 1. Polina Shuvalova (Moscow) 2. Anastasia Protopopova (the Saratov Oblast), 3. Daria Gorovenko (the Astrakhan Oblast)
U17 boys: 1. Olexandr Triapishko (The Republic of Crimea), 2. Andrei Sorokin (the Altai Krai), 3. Alexey Sarana (the Moscow Oblast)
U19 girls: 1. Daria Rodionova (the Novosibirsk Oblast), 2. Alexandra Obolentseva (Moscow), 3. Polina Maslova (the Samara Oblast)
U19 boys: 1. Maksim Vavulin (Moscow), 2. Dmitry Anikonov (the Krasnoyarsk Krai), 3. David Zakaryan (the Krasnodar Krai)
It is Daniil Maneluk's triumph in the group of U11 boys that should perhaps be labeled as the biggest surprise, having overtaken "the" Ilya Makoveev - the Russian, the European and the World Champion. However, it is impossible to win every single tournament that comes your way: the further you proceed in your sports career, the greater the resistance of your competitors becomes. Let us be happy for Daniil and his coach Maxim Novikov - it is a pleasure that yet another unique nugget has revealed itself in the Russian chess! As for Ilya, he went on to take revenge as soon as the following day by becoming the Russian blitz champion.
In the previous report we already mentioned that the first place in junior girls tournament was taken by Dinara Dordzhieva one round ahead of the finish. Moreover, she went on to wrap up the tournament on a positive note by winning the last game as well. The second place went to the vice-champion of the world among junior girls Alina Bivol and the third place was taken by Anna Styazhkina - the many times winner of various girls championships.
Final tournament standings:
1st place - D. Dordzhieva (The Republic of Kalmykia) with 7,5 out of 9 points; 2nd - A. Bivol (the Moscow region), 3rd - A. Styazhkina (St. Petersburg) with 6 points, 4th - I. Utiatskaja (Moscow) with 5.5 points; 5th - V. Chernyak (St. Petersburg) with 5 points; 6th - D. Khokhlova (the Sakhalin Oblast) with 4.5 points; 7th - Makarenko (the Udmurt Republic) with 4 points, 8th - E. Smirnova (the Vladimir Oblast), 9th - A. Dimitrova (the Kostroma Oblast) with 2.5 points; 10th - A. Kochukova (the Voronezh Oblast) with 1.5 points.
In the junior boys tournament the fate of the first place remained unclear for as long as almost six hours afterwards: while the concert hall had everything ready for the closing ceremony, the game Goryachkina - Lugovskoy was still ongoing and its outcome had direct influence on either Kirill Alekseenko or Urii Eliseev's taking the "gold" prize. In the last round, Kirill tied with Saveliy Golubov, while Urii defeated Andrey Esipenko and caught up with the leader. The Sonneborn-Berger score was specified as the first additional tiebreaker and Alekseenko would rate slightly higher should Goryachkina not lose, in the very least. Fairly speaking, Kirill did not have much to worry about as Aleksandra performed with great enthusiasm and could only win the game. Alas, she failed to do so in the final run; however, the St. Petersburg grandmaster was quite happy with a draw as well and ended up taking the gold medal. Our congratulations go to Kirill and his coach Andrei Mikhailovich Lukin, whom we prematurely announced a birthday person, although his birthday is, in fact, on August 28. However, congratulating a good man is a pleasure even if you do it on a daily basis - you just need to come up with good enough subjects to do so!
Final tournament standings:
1st - K. Alekseenko (St. Petersburg), 2nd - U. Eliseev (Moscow) with 6 out of 9 points; 3rd. S. Golubov (Moscow region) with 5.5 points; 4th - Maksim Chigaev (St. Petersburg) with 5 points; 5th - Andrey Esipenko (Rostov region) with 4.5 points; 6th - David Paravyan (Moscow); 7th - Daniil Yuffa (the Tyumen Oblast), 8th - Dmitry Gordievsky (Moscow) with 4 points; 9th - Maxim Lugovskoy (the Krasnodar Krai) with 3.5 points; 10th - Aleksandra Goryachkina (the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug) with 2.5 points.
In the near future our website will post interviews with Dinara Dordzhieva, head of the RCF grandmaster center in Togliatti Yuri Yakovich, Kirill Alekseenko and Liudmila Alekseeva Belavenets. In the meantime, we offer you a photographic report from the closing ceremony of the Russian Junior classical chess Championships. As tradition has it, the first to be awarded were winners of the sportive event such as fun starts, power snatch, football and volleyball competitions. Then he summed up the 2015 Russian Children Cup results and moved on to the awarding the winners of the Loo competition. The ceremony was conducted by RCF Deputy Executive Director Alexander Tkachev, chairman of the RCF Children and Youth Committee Andrey Beletsky and chief coach of the national junior team Mikhail Kobalia. The closing ceremony was wrapped by "AquaLoo" hotel Director awarding children and their parents with three weekly holiday packages to take rest in this hotel, which has become for them like a second home already.
