8 May 2016
Inscribed Forever on Twitter’s Tablets
Day Five of the Russian Club Championship, held at the hotel Zhemchuzhina, in the review of Vladimir Barsky.
It seems as though in the evening following the end of round five everyone in Sochi was already aware of a superb shot Bxh7+!!, happened in the game Nepomniachtchi - Sjugirov. One was given this position to solve at the training session, another one was confidentially put into the picture by his comrade, still others were notified by SMS by the legendary cleaning lady from Khanty-Mansiysk. It goes without saying that Giri's wife knew about this cute trap, too. Sanan, on the other hand, was out of luck. It is evident that it is long since he has tested this rare line of the Petroff Defence: "Stockfish" comes up with this shot as soon as second two.
In this age of ours, when the chess opening fields are being subjected to total computer "plowing", similar bright opening discoveries happen ever so seldom, so it is not surprising that everyone wants to demonstrate his share of insight and involvement. Nevertheless, all laurels go to Daniil Dubov, as recorded by Ian on the tablets of Twitter, “Today I was lucky to play one of the most extraordinary and beautiful ideas I've ever seen in my life. Giant thanks, honor and glory to Daniil Dubov, who shared this beauty with me!” Nothing more, nothing less, "One of the most extraordinary and beautiful ideas I have ever seen in my life."
You are free to read more about the SHSM - "Zhiguli" match, in which this game was played, in Dmitry Kryakvin’s blog. In the second match "The Bronze Horseman" scored a landslide 5:1 victory over "Ladya" even in the absence of his leader Peter Svidler. The first half of the Premier League is over with the Moscow team and "Siberia" leading the field with 6 team points, while one point behind is the team of St. Petersburg. While these three teams are most likely to become the prize winners in the end, the question of final tournament standings still remains open. However, the Samara "Zhiguli" might well have an opinion of her own about this issue.
The round five duel between the Moscow "Boavista" ("Boavista" and Moscow, originally a surprising combination of words, comes as surprise no longer!) and the Belorechensk "University" proved the most hard-fought in the women’s section. On board one Aleksandra Goryachkina, representing the club from the Krasnodarskiy Kray, defeated Ekaterina Ubiennykh, in response to which the "black and white" came back with two victories: Elena Tomilova outplayed Natalia Zhukova and Irina Vasilevich defeated Marina Baraeva. The final score is 2.5-1.5 and "Boavista" continues its active participation in the struggle for one of the prize places. The same is true, however, for "Donchanka" as well, which on that day defeated yet another capital city team "The Youth of Moscow" with the same score.
Their fellow countrymen were revenged by "SHSM Legacy Square Capital», which defeated the Kazan "Ladya" 3-1. It should be added that in this match Alisa Galliamova held her ground as Black against Alexandra Kosteniuk; it seems as though the celebrated chess player slowly comes into shape despite the unfortunately lengthy breaks in between her tournament performances. Finally, the last match saw SDUSHOR SHSH clobbering "Bukavushki" with a 4-0 score.
In the Premier League the leading team "Bulbasaurs" went down to Sergey Arkhipov’s team 1.5-2.5. The board two encounter proved decisive: the Ukrainian grandmaster Vitali Bernadskiy, playing for the Togliatti club, demonstrated a deep level of opening preparation to win a pawn from the young Muscovite David Paravyan. However, in the subsequent game he acted very inconsistently and at first wasted all his advantage and then aggravated his situation entirely by falling into a mating attack. Thus, at mid distance "Malachite" and “SergArk team” launched forward with "Bulbasaurs" and "Petrovskaya Ladya" trailing one point behind. We should note that as part of the St. Petersburg team’ lineup round five witnessed the first appearance of the former World Champion Alexander Khalifman (he tied with black pieces against Mikhail Demidov). It seems that only now we have all the "aces" in the game!
Ongoing is the All-Russian Championship of Orphanages and Boarding Schools, and while President of the International School Chess Union Alexander Kostyev intended to give yet another lesson for teachers, the seminar was attended with pleasure also by those children who were quick to finish their games. They were busy solving chess problems and playing against computer programs.
An interesting exhibition of rare stamps and envelopes "Chess 2016" was opened in the lobby of the Grand Hotel "Zhemchuzhina" with a large gathering of local media representatives. A special envelope, dedicated to the current tournament, has been issued and the souvenir stamps cancellation procedure was organized. The initiators of the exhibition are Igor Mamaladze, chairman of the Sochi Philatelic Society, and Sergey Demin, chairman of the Krasnodar Philatelic Society.
This long and eventful day was wrapped up with the karaoke contest bearing a self-descriptive title "Not a sound about chess." The final was qualified into by the famous tenor Evgeni Dragomarezkij and the leading soprano of the RCF accounting department Svetlana Ostrovskaya, but most of all the members of the jury board, headed by Sergey Smagin, liked the performance of Svetlana Rogova.
A day off is scheduled on Friday, May 6 for all groups save for the Premier League and the girls’ tournament. In the meanwhile, solvers of chess problems and proponents of the bughouse chess will be busy taking part in their competitions.
