The Khanty Rhapsody
Dmitry Kryakvin reports about round one of the Russian Cup Finals
Any Russian chess player, and not only Russian, has the end of the calendar year strongly associated with Khanty-Mansiysk. It has been quite a while now that a wealth of tournaments, ranging from the Olympiad to the children's championship of the Ural Federal District, is known to take place in the capital of Ugra this time of year, not to mention the Ugra Governor's Cup and the Russian Cup finals that convince many players to book a month's stay in Khanty in their schedules as early as the beginning of the year. Amid the news of Russia to potentially host the World Rapid and Blitz Championship, many a player started assuming this international forum to also take place in this spot so beloved by chess folks; however, the best rapid experts are purchasing tickets to St. Petersburg instead.
Nevertheless, the Russian Cup Final is supposed to be the finishing touch of the Ugra “chess fever,” giving us a very interesting and mixed lineup for this year’s event. Besides experienced Cup fighters Dmitry Kokarev, Artyom Timofeev, Sergey Volkov and Dmitry Bocharov, “home team members” Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexey Pridorozhni, a winner of the Russian Championship's Higher League Alexey Sarana, “yesterday's juniors” Maksim Chigaev, Alexander Predke, Maxim Vavulin, Kirill Alekseenko, David Paravyan and Zhamsaran Tsydypov, there are newcomers to the Cup final as well, them being Aleksey Sorokin, Andrey Drygalov and Nikita Afanasiev. A no less decent lineup is in the women’s section as well - the finalists of the previous Cups Baira Kovanova, Marina Guseva, Daria Voit, Olga Girya and Anastasia Bodnaruk will be contested by Polina Shuvalova, Daria Charochkina and Elena Semenova.
Starting off to a slow-motion draw by Timofeev and Volkov, the Khanty Rhapsody then geared up to a bunch of sensational results coming as if in showers - out of the first four top players only Maxim Chigaev managed to scramble half a point! Nikita Afanasiev was up to the challenge against a formidable Dmitry Jakovenko, easily equalizing with his trademark Philidor, followed by outplaying his opponent with apparent ease and getting down to reaping material gains to pocket a truly amazing victory! Andrey Drygalov and Kirill Alekseenko resumed an extremely trendy discussion in the wilds of Rossolimo, in which Kirill failed to fend off the Kurgan player’s powerful prep, while Paravyan – Tsydypov turned into a real arms race on the board.
Paravyan – Tsydypov
Final 16, game one
David once again demonstrated an excellent insight into the modern theory - this position was tested more than once in the games of strong chess players, suffuse it to recall Svidler vs Navara of Biel 2018.
They have tested various continuations here, 11...0-0 and 11...Be6 among them; however, having spent a few precious minutes Zhamsaran decided to pioneer his own way.
11...g5!?
This move gave engine addicts hard time in terms of keeping up with the intricacies of subsequent actions. Like patterns in the kaleidoscope, the evaluation would sway back and forth, and it was David who committed a first error.
12.Qxg5 Rg8 13.Qf4 Nh5 14.Qh6 Qe5 15.Rb1 Rg6 16.Qxh7 Nf4 17.cxd5 Bg4
18.Bb2
This is a type of error resisting a question mark. Figuring out the vitality of 18.h3!! to rule out the subsequent bishop check from h3 after 18…Bh5 19.Bb2 Qxd5 20.Qh8+ Kd7 21.Bb5+ Rc6! 22.Qxa8 Nxg2+ 23.Kf1 Nxe3+ 24.fxe3 Qf3+ 25.Kf1 was beyond Paravyan, which marked an uphill battle for him as a result.
18...Qxd5 19.Bb5+ Ke7 20.Qh4+ Ke6 21.Qg3 Nxg2+ 22.Kf1 Bf5 23.e4 Qxe4 24.Bc4+ Qxc4+ 25.bxc4 Rxg3 26.hxg3 Bxb1 27.Kxg2 Bxa2, and up a pawn edge was successfully converted some thirty moves later.
Dmitry Kokarev was confident and not at all baffled by Maxim Vavulin's swashbuckling style – in game one Dmitry calmly took every pawn offered him, whereas in the second encounter he achieved a draw from a position of strength. Alexey Sarana and Alexander Predke won their first battles (even if not without adventures), but game day two turned nearly everything upside down.However, along with Predke and Sarana, Tsydypov and Drygalov lost their return games as well.
Pridorozhni – Sarana
Final 16, game two
Alexey-the-junior’s opening approach is not reliable, which he is immediately punished for.
20.Rxe6+! Kxe6 21.Re1+ Ne5 22.f4 Nfd7 23.fxe5 Nxe5
Black is seemingly safe and sound with no immediate killing blows in sight while up an exchange, but Pridorozhni, in keeping with the classical legacy, finds a winning maneuver.
24.Nc1! Rhd8 25.Qg7 Rd4 26.Nd3 and White wins shortly after.
While Sorokin and Chigaev were signing scoresheets marking the peaceful outcome of the match in the main time, and Artyom Timofeev busy converting his up a pawn edge in the rook ending (which he successfully did to qualify into the next round), the entire Internet public literally exploded. It was caused by 1:0 in Afanasiev – Jakovenko despite the fact that neither position, nor tournament situation allowed the latter to finish the fight so quickly. In fact, the reality was rather prosaic: Jakovenko was confident in the additional thirty minutes to be added after move forty! We will never know whether the local public’s favorite could bring home the endgame edge against the author of round one's main sensation, but it is now a fact that the chess world is in for a new winner of the Russian Cup in a few days.
Afanasiev – Jakovenko
Final 16, game two
After 44.Bg4 Kxb5 the white pawn does not queen: 45.Bxc8 Kxc5 46.Bb7 Bc6!, and if Afanasiev’s position is a fortress remains unknown...
The tie-breaks were broken by first rapid game as whoever won it was the one to go further. Dmitry Bocharov managed to win both, Alekseenko and Sarana qualified by securing draws, while Sorokin and Paravyan suffered painful defeats in the return games. However, keeping fresher minds when going into Armageddon, they ended up taking the “death game.” Worthy of note is that in Paravyan - Tsydypov the former scored fifth victory in what was Black’s triumph in each and every game they played against each other! So much for “suffocation by draws” in chess.
Beautiful girls did no less to give spectators spectacular chess and decisive games. Unfortunately, technical problems stopped first quarter-final games from getting into the net, but the return games are there, some of those even as high as 4-0 in White’s favor! However, it was not without certain misunderstandings in the return matches. Having opened Kovanova - Guseva on one of the broadcasting sites, I immediately suspected that something was wrong with Guseva's opening as it was so atypical for her! Digging around for more information, I managed to find out that it was wrong in terms of showing the first and second players. By that time I almost finished writing Guseva some words of consolation! However, it was a false alarm.
Guseva - Kovanova
Final eight, game two
The last ten moves saw Marina carefully maneuvering her pieces, looking for the moment to break through and finally spotting the gap.
30.c4! dxc4
Baira was obviously apprehensive of the position arising after 30...Rad8 31.e6 Bxe6 32.Nc6 Rd6 33.cxd5 as giving dangerous initiative to her opponent and eliminating the c4-bait for that reason, but another sacrifice of a more powerful piece freed the way for white pawns to plunge forward.
31.Rxe4! fxe4 32.f5 Qg7 33.e6 gxh3 34.exf7+ Qxf7 35.Qxh3
The black king is exposed, the coordination of pieces is beyond remedy, and it was before long that Kovanova congratulated the opponent on qualifying into the semi-finals.
Having started with a draw, Daria Charochkina gradually crushed Anastasia Bodnaruk with central pawns in the Grünfeld Defense; meanwhile, Daria Voit failed to challenge her opponent as Black in the Sicilian defense to come back after defeat in round one. Thus, it is 2-0 in Shuvalova’s favor.
Trading blows in the “northern derby” were Olga Girya and Elena Semenova (meanwhile, Semenova managed to come back by defeating Girya’s favorite Caro-Kann in as quickly as 18 moves - quite an achievement!). There followed a tie-break.
Girya – Semenova
Final eight, rapid game one
Each Russian Cup enriches tactical textbooks with beautiful examples, the 2018 Cup being no exception, of course.
16.Ng5 g6 17.Qh3 h5 18.Ne6! fxe6 19.Qxe6+ Kg7 20.Qxd6 Qxd6 21.Bxd6, remaining up a pawn and with a bishop pair in the endgame. In the return game, Semenova was that close to a second heroic deed of the day, but home ground helped the native of Ugra to escape in one piece, and it is Girya who goes forward. Indeed, losing all local representatives in one day would be too cruel towards the local public.
Thus, within a span of only two days we have witnessed strong-willed victories, tragic overstepping the time limit, and, most importantly, an attitude from all participants to battle it out uncompromisingly to the very last pawn. The Filibuster has all of us loaded with positive mood! Well, let's hope in the further we go the more we grow!
In the quarterfinals, the men’s pairings feature Kokarev - Afanasiev, Alekseenko - Sarana, Paravyan - Bocharov and Timofeev - Sorokin, whereas in the women's section Girya and Charochkina are faced off with Guseva and Shuvalova respectively. It is only a few days from now that we know the names of those worthy of praising with “We are the champions”!
