10 June 2015
Football Gambit
Dmitry Kryakvin reports from the 13th World’s Youth Stars.
The participants of Vanya Somov’s Memorial can already feel that the finish is not far off. The intrigue is off the scale, and final rounds don't look easy for the main favorite Maksim Chigaev, who has recently shown great results at Russian Club Championship in Sochi and Russian Blitz and Rapid Championships. The strong Belarusian Valeriy Kazakovskiy goes closely after the leaders, and the Georgian Giorgi Sibashvili is just half a point behind Maksim. "A very talanted and interesting boy! And a great, smart family. I think he will show himself here!", told me Gennady Nesis at the start. Indeed, his first round halt against Matyas Marek did not disturb Sibashvili to start winning right away. At one point he was even sharing the first place.
Russian players told me that Giorgi traditionally fought for medals at European and World Junior Championships, he played well at Junior Olympiads and Dvorkovich Cup. Recently he has made mark in Nakhchivan, where he battled with many strong GMs head-to-head and overplayed one of the main Aeroflot Open favorites, Indian GM Baskaran Adhiban (2646) with Black pieces. So everybody waits for the last round duel Sibashvili-Chigaev with a big interest. Besides, Alexey Zenzera and Andrey Esipenko are dreaming to mount the pedestal as well.
Rounds 8 and 9 of World’s Youth Stars are played in the Gambit Chess Club – a cozy place in the center of Kirishi. Young player from a local chess section have an opportunity to see titled youngsters and to cheer on the local player Sveta Tishova.
Gambit Chess Club
The competition takes a lot of physical and mental energy and participants recharge their batteries by playing football in the evenings. Experienced and competent photographers Yana and Rustam work with me at the playing hall and beyond. They share their photos on yarusfoto.ru. This report includes some of the beautiful pictures made by Rustam on the football match between the chess players and local sportsmen, strengthened by some Kirishi visitors. By the way, chess players won with a minimal margin.
In the final report we will discuss the events on the boards (at last!).
