12 July 2016
Tie-Break Without Banquet
Pivotal moments of the Russian Championship Higher League in the review of Dmitry Kryakvin.
The Higher League of the Russian Championship is my favorite tournament. This said, it really does not matter if you partake in the event as a player or journalist. Your correspondent has something to compare with since the number of "high" competitions under his belt gravitates towards the figure of ten. I take the liberty of pointing out that the Higher League was initially conceived as a competition for absolutely everyones except the very ones, and the conditions there used to be quite appropriate. The magnificence of the 2006-2010 Higher Leagues, held in Siberia, was nothing short of being amazing – with single rooms for everyone in good hotels (meals included), and with comfortable tournament halls, which one could often come down into right from their hotel rooms. Meanwhile, it was absolutely unimportant whether you are a 2700 rated grandmaster, such as Bareev or Nepomniachtchi, or a provincial candidate master of sports, whose qualification happened to be a sheer miracle. It was as though social equality used to be the main postulate of the Higher League. I remember Alexander Khasin telling me upon having read one of my articles in "64" with criticism of one of the tournament's organizational shortcomings, "Dima, mark my word, time will come when you are going to look back at these tournaments with nostalgia! Some five-ten years from then you will be yet longing for these golden years!"
Diving from the Kolomna bridge
Time has passed, and free lunches of three courses to your choice, coupled with an additional amount of 500 rubles given for a dinner (back then the exchange rate would bring you as many as 20 dollars for it - at present this is a totally different story and quite a different amount of money...) in 2010 in Irkutsk, or meal tickets that included red salmon, among other things, in 2013 in Vladivostok, deserve only kind words. While the crisis is hitting our country, which is surrounded by an economic blockade at that, there is not much left in terms of financial funding. It feels as thought it was for the first time in the event's history that participants were accommodated in double rooms (you needed to reimburse extra for a single room yourself), while meals were not included for the second year in a row (you could choose between the bourgeois open buffet and pre-portioned food which was twice as cheap). However, thanks God (and Sergey Nesterov!) that the tournament was arranged and conducted as a matter of urgency following another organizer's decision to back out of it! I should mention that you could not but notice that the restaurant staff was doing their best, everything being up to the occasion and with a lot of respect towards chess players from everywhere.
It has not been so long ago that the overheated playhall of the Russian Junior Team Championship, held at the same skating Sports Palace of Kolomna, used to turn into a suffocating chamber for the the most strong-spirited ones so that the starting time was shifted to the morning hours, which only partially mitigated the participants' situation. This time it felt somewhat stuffy either, which, together with the growing intensity of the struggle, contributed to a series of incredible blunders, expertly pointed out by the Chess-News and ChessPro commentators. Meanwhile, more air conditioners were being installed in the playhall, whereas it is worth noting that it is not only this Russian city where it feels so hot in summer. One of the air conditioners at the women's hall was performing so effectively that female players, seated next to it, needed to be relocated into the men's hall and seated at the boards unconnected to the live broadcasting system.
Everything has been thought out to the smallest detail so that that even standing next to the potable water container and separating plastic cups one by one from each other in the stack was Igor Kovpak, introduced to participants by Mikhail Krjukov as one of the main Kolomna's millionaires, so that, God forbid, there be no rustling during the game! This daily ritual created an indelible impression on everyone.
Sergey Nesterov and Igor Kovpak
There are yet another two moments that branded on my memory. At a certain moment the administration of the sports complex started cracking down on the smokers, at which point Mikhail Krjukov intervened to argue in favor of a new area for smoking chess players, the number of which was quite a few. Here are some of the details that have added together over the years to build up Michail Vitalievich's authority. Moment two happened when a dispenser ran out of water once. The folks were thirsty and started being nervous while casting ill-natured looks at the empty bottle. Meanwhile, the replacement bottle's arrival was being late. It was at this moment that Alexander Tkachev showed up in the doorway, hauling a hefty bottle nestled on his shoulder all by himself. It might seem that a tournament director should rather preoccupy himself with profits and losses, technical and overall management issues. Therefore, seeing all this, a linesman Victor Berezin, who was standing behind me, gasped in surprise and nearly dropped into the chair at this very moment.
Meanwhile, heat was doing its filthy work in keeping people from falling and staying asleep even with their windows open, whereas no air conditioning was installed in the rooms of mere mortals at that. Undisturbed sleep in air-conditioned rooms was only available to those who stayed in the divine upper-floor rooms and enjoyed the archangel's status. In this connection, one day certain tournament participants made up their mind to organize a flash mob and jump down from a local bridge into the river to cool down a bit. It needs no saying that other female players had it all documented and immediately sent to the editorial office of RCF.
Kolomna. Those who had no air conditioning in their rooms
However, if compared to the 2014 Junior Championship the "Kolomna" hotel provided access to Wi-Fi, which did not work in the majority of rooms on the one hand, but had an advantage of being free on the other hand. But, again, it was obvious that the receiving side was making every effort towards turning the tournament into a real holiday of chess. Therefore, even if something was getting in the way, it was not overly critical. Maintaining good human relations is the most important aspect. Even lack of not so much of a banquet, but of a mere cocktail dinner, which happened for the first time in my Higher League experience, did not go down that badly with the participating folks. Nevertheless, I am convinced that when the crisis is over one day, while Sergey Anatolievich will keep making the Russian players happy for many years to come yet! As for Michail Vitalievich, I am sure that we will yet see him being in charge of giving recommendations as to which kind of fish is best served to the table, as was the case at the closing ceremony of the 2015 Rapid Grand Prix final in Khanty-Mansiysk.
A Lenient Championship
It is not entirely clear why certain key players never showed up in the men's section of the tournament. Either everyone was involved in the headquarters of the men's Olympic team and that of Sergey Karjakin’s, or, perhaps, it was the notorious pre-portioned meals that did not go down well with them. Yet another version of the story says that the top players were somewhat spoiled by the recent years' tradition, according to which the Superfinal would admit top rated players, stripping even the Higher League place six winner of any chances to get into. However, the tournament turned out to be such -- sort of lenient -- that it afforded chances to the "folk heroes" to look forward to a successful outcome, whereas previously they would be given hard time in matchups against such players as Nepomniachtchi, Rublevsky, Najer or Artemiev, to name a few. Besides, RCF consciously admitted a lot of young, promising players --the hopes of our country -- into the tournament, even though it raised reasonable objections on behalf of the merited classical players, who back in their time of youth used to regularly pass through the sieve of harsh screening to elbow their way into the Higher League.
Some fuel into the fire was also added by the following exaggerated situation: with one round to go Sergey Volkov was about to claim his qualification ticket into the Super Final, even though he used to be paired solely against 2400 or 2500 rated players throughout the entire course of the tournament. Many of my colleagues were not especially enthusiastic about such developments and began expressing their dissatisfaction, me being the spotlight of their anger for some unknown reason. "Where are the lists of tournament participants and their admission criteria? Why are they not posted on the RCF website? How many organizers' wild cards are there all in all? Why are the tournament regulations not complied with? Is it a Higher League or some sort of an open tournament after all?" all of this was thrown at your correspondent's back when the latter was attempting to steal his way from the hotel room into the elevator. It really looked as thought the website personnel had indeed retrieved and burned this godforsaken list! However, let us go back to the tournament itself.
Some mysterious problems pestered Alexandr Predke at the tournament's start. Firstly, the list of contestants saw Alexandr as a 2500 rather than 2550 rated player, which resulted in a certain distortion of the first round pairing. Chief referee and tournament secretary Vladimir Staratorzhsky immediately embarked upon searching for the missing fifty points and ordered that everyone responsible for the loss be faced with the firing squad without any legitimate criminal investigations or court decisions. Having resorted to such harsh measures, the error was corrected prior to the start of round two. Secondly, the clock of the starting round game Riazantsev - Predke was set by the linesmen with the time increment mode switched off. It is so good that the experienced coach of the women's national team was in time to notice the problem! What would have happened if any of the players' flags dropped down in a period of time trouble? They would have certainly claimed that if anyone was to blame at all in this situation, it should be players themselves. At this point an execution by firing squad would have become an ill-timed measure already.
As for the tournament intrigue, Grigoriy Oparin and Vladimir Fedoseev pushed hard from the start, winning three out of four games. It cannot be said, however, that such a push came easily to them - Grisha happily escaped trouble in his encounter against Maxim Vavulin, while Volodya handled the opening badly against your author, but then played very strongly and deservedly scored a beautiful victory. The day of the pivotal tournament battle arrived at last.
Oparin – Fedoseev
Round 5
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.0–0 Be7 6.c3 0–0 7.Re1 a6 8.Ba4 h6 9.Nbd2 Re8 10.Nf1 Bf8 11.Ng3 b5 12.Bb3 Na5 13.Bc2 c5 14.d4 cxd4 15.cxd4 exd4 16.Nxd4 Bb7 17.Bf4 Rc8 18.Rc1
Either a typical 18...g6 or a more aggressive 18...Nc4 are good moves in this position. However, as was admitted by Volodya later, he was perfectly well aware of a totally anti-positional nature of the g-pawn's advance up two squares, but was all of a sudden overwhelmed by the feeling of chess aggression and thirst for unorthodox type of fighting.
18…g5?! 19.Bd2 Nc4 20.Bc3 d5 21.Ndf5!
It would be naive to believe Grigoriy to fall for 21.exd5? b4! Even though the weakened f5-square is downright attractive for the white cavalry, Black's pieces are also active - the critical moment of the game is yet to come.
Grigoriy Oparin
21...b4 22.Bd4 dxe4 23.Ba4! Re6 24.Bb3 Rec6 25.Qe2?!
Oparin's crafty play resulted in Black's having to double up his rooks along the c-file, although it is of little use for him, making it high time to take some decisive actions: 25.h4! Surprisingly enough, Black could have capitalized on the white queen position on e2 to turn it into an important resource of his counterplay.
25…Na5 26.Rxc6 Rxc6 27.Bc2 Re6 28.Rd1 Qa8?
This sweeping queen move into the corner proves that it was clearly not one of Fedoseev's days. Still, the St. Petersburg grandmaster is habitually very strong and resourceful in similar positions rich in tactical opportunities, which makes Vladimir's decision to refrain from 28...Nd5! look very strange. 29.Bxe4 Nf4. It enables Oparin to come up with a showcase execution of the black king.
29.h4 Nh7 30.hxg5 hxg5 31.Qg4 Bd5 32.Nh5 Qc6
Here comes a petite combination, which, according to classical players, is as natural here as a baby's smile.
33.Nf6+! Rxf6 34.Bxf6 Nxf6 35.Qxg5+ Kh8 36.Rxd5 Nxd5 37.Bxe4 Qf6
The main line, which required some calculation, is as follows: 37...Nc4 38.Qh4+ Kg8 39.Ne7+ Bxe7 40.Qh7+ Kf8 41.Qh8#. Although Black preferred parting with a pawn via
38.Qh5+ Kg8 39.Bxd5, the game did not last long afterwards.
Sergey Shipov and Sergey Dolmatov's disciple is worthy of the most kind words. After the opening round win over Kirill Kozionov, Grigoriy scored a nice victory over Ivan Popov and, being in a difficult position, managed to pull off a cheapo to snatch the game from Maxim Vavulin, grabbing the lead with "+4" following his glorious victory over Fedoseev. Then the Muscovite switched into the lead retaining mode and operated very reliably at that, skillfully fending off fierce offensives launched by Matlakov and Riazantsev, who were playing with the white pieces. This is a deserved first place and it would be very interesting to see Grigoriy's performance at the Novosibirsk Superfinal. By the way, I cannot help but express my admiration with the coaching skills of Sergei Yurievich since Shipov has already conquered the Higher League with Nepomniachtchi, Dubov, and Oparin! As a matter of fact, once every three years the legendary commentator would send a new disciple to earn 500 thousand rubles (Although Daniil was slightly out of luck and finished second, is it really such a big deal?). This is simply fantastic! Sergey, who is next in line?
Meanwhile, Fedoseev did not lose heart and started rushing after the junior leader. On the following day Volodya defeated Evgeny Shaposhnikov and, given a huge Buchholz of the northerner, he needed only one victory to catch up with and overtake Oparin by additional tiebreakers. However, this victory never came. The first to get in the way of the current Russian Team Champion was the youngest grandmaster from the Urals, a freebooter of the Russian open tournaments and the Chelyabinsk nightmare of Vishy Anand.
Fedoseev – Ponkratov
Round 8
Although Vladimir outplayed his opponent, there is no end of ordeals that Pavel had been through while traveling across Russia! An old-timer knows the difference between getting a winning position against Ponkratov and winning it. Once my friend from the Urals proposed that a book titled "Trash on the chessboard, or how to fight back in a lost position?" be published in two parts. The first part was meant to be about Boris Savchenko, while the second one - about Pavel Ponkratov. The main point of the book would be trying to partially systematize a number of techniques that our fellow citizens resort to in order to wriggle out of trouble an ordinary open tournament game, when the situation on the board has gone terribly wrong, but you are in a must-win situation. Let us assume that we are still in the process of accumulating material for the books.
So, Black is in the midst of a rather grim-looking position, while such moves as 26...Bf8 or 26...Rf8 were naturally to the least of Pavel Andreevich's liking. This said, Ponkratov pulled forward, exposing his chest to the steel claws of a chess Wolverine.
26… Nf4!? 27.Rdd1?
This is incredible! Just one imprecise move is enough for Ponkratov to come off unscathed! Winning was a spectacular 27.Nxf7!! Rxd5 28.exd5 Kxf7 (28...Nxh3+ 29.gxh3 Qxa4 30.Qxb6 Qxa3 31.Qxg6 helps neither) 29.d6+. Also good was 27.Rb5 since 27…Bd4 28.g3 Qf6 29.gxf4 Qxf4 30.Re2 Rxd6 31.Bxd6 Qxd6 32.e5! is not in Black's favor – there is simply not enough compensation for the missing exchange.
Later Fedoseev admitted his feeling of being somewhat restrained by the burden of qualification task and his past failure experiences from Vladivostok and Kaliningrad, for this reason he was after reliable performance. This seemingly solid rook move throws a win away.
27...Rd7 28.e5 Qg5! 29.g3 Nxh3+ 30.Kf1 Bxe5!
Black has gobbled up two pawns without any scruples, and it turns out that he can get away with it unpunished. Vladimir is trying to infiltrate along the big diagonal using the weakened f6-square, but Ponkratov, as though no-harm charm guarding him, comes up with a defense.
31.Ne4 Qf5 32.Rxd7 Qxd7 33.Bb2 Bxb2 34.Qxb2 Qd3+ 35.Kg2 Ng5!
Although White has multiple ideas connected with checking and subsequent invasion of the white knight, none of them works out for White!
36.Nf6+ Kf8 37.Re3 Qc4
38.Kh2
Upon having assured himself that at the end of the line 38.Ne8 Qc6+! (bad is 38...Ne6 39.Nc7 Qxc7 40.Qh8+ Ke7 41.Qxa8 Qc6+ 42.Kg1 Qc1+ 43.Kh2) 39.f3 Ne6 40.Nc7 Qxc7 41.Qh8+ Ke7 42.Qxa8 Qc2+ Black would have powerful compensation for the exchange, White made up his mind to get away with a draw by perpetual.
38...Rd8 39.Nh7+ Kg8 40.Nf6+ Kf8 Draw.
Vladimir Fedoseev
The ultimate round turned into a test of strength for Vladimir as he was paired against a Russian candidate master (who has recently chanced to miraculously retrieve a Soviet chess master diploma from his documents), a two-time Olympic Champion and the tournament's number two seed Vadim Zvjaginsev. Taking into account that the National Unified Sports Classification still rates the above-mentioned freebooter, Anand's nightmare and the Russian Rapid Champion as a candidate master as well, Fedoseev was subjected to a true candidate test at the finish. Since Zvjaginsev has twice before blocked the young Petersburger's way into the Superfinal, the matchup was being looked forward to with incredible enthusiasm. Although this game's opening clearly played into the youth's hands, Vadim found a way to inflict financial damage to his counterpart this time around as well by not going down and not allowing Vladimir taking the first place. We wish Vladimir Fedoseev that the Novosibirsk Superfinal made up for all bad luck that he went through at the Higher Leagues.
It goes without saying that missing on the Superfinal was by no means an option for the European Cup winner and our country's foremost proponent of the King's Indian Defence Dmitry Kokarev, who by now feel at home in Novosibirsk already. Having cashed in on the youngsters Sasha Triapishko and Andrey Esipenko at the start (Dima, however, evaluates the decision to allow youngsters into the tournament as an excellent and timely one and requests that more young players come his way for testing), Kokarev followed it up by a very reliable performance and, should he have discovered a winning continuation while in time trouble of the round nine game (yet another case of the King's Indian Defence battle) against Aleksey Goganov, he would have ended up being second! Nevertheless, having finished "+3" to take the "bronze" medal was also an excellent result achieved to a no lesser degree owing to the victory over yet another strong junior Kirill Alekseenko.
Kokarev – Alekseenko
Round 6
Kokarev handled the Ruy Lopez in a very subtle manner and now the white pieces are well in train for the final onslaught.
33.Ne3 Bb4
Also bad is 33...Bg6 34.Nf5 Bxf5 35.gxf5 Nd6 36.Rh2, but more stubborn was 33...Nd6 34.Rh2 Bc7 35.Rah1 Bg6. This is also losing, but it would have at least made White put in an effort of having to look for a surgical solution of the 36.Nf5! type. Nxf5 37.exf5 Bf7 38.d6!Bxd6 39.Be4 Rad8 40.Bd5 e4 41.Bxf7+ Kxf7 42.Qc3, winning. Kirill attempted to trade a pair of rooks, but eventually ran into a nice combination.
34.Rxh7! Kxh7
Black is neither helped by 34...Qxh7 35.Rxa8 Rxa8 36.Qxf6 Qg7 37.Qe6+ Qf7 38.Qxe5.
35.Rh1+ Kg8
Black would drop his queen after 35...Kg6 36.Qf5+ Kf7 37.Rh7, although there is no salvation anyway.
36.Nf5 Qd7 37.Bxe5! Rxe5 38.Qh3 Rf8 39.Qh8+ Kf7 40.Qh5+, and the native of St. Petersburg stopped the clock in view of the inevitable mate in two.
Dmitry Kokarev is the head of the performance quality control group for young players
A terrible fight flared up for other qualification places into the Superfinal! Sanan Sjugirov started badly and tried his best to catch up with the group of leaders, missing the impossible only by a narrow margin. In the penultimate round Sanan was very close to defeating Alexei Goganov, but missed the win and even after a willed act of heroism with the black pieces against Evgeny Alekseev ended up only eighth in the final standings. Goganov, on the contrary, proved a heavy favorite of Caissa after getting away in one piece from unpleasantly messy encounters with Sjugirov and Kokarev, this being his second time to have qualified into the Superfinal. It turned out that Aleksey is serious about his study of ancient philosophers. Following the end of the closing ceremony, the St. Petersburg grandmaster even indulged Maxim Matlakov and me in a lecture on how one should go about playing in Higher Leagues from the perspective of wisemen of past ages. Honestly speaking, when listening to Goganov's monologue, it dawned on me that I was by no means ripe for a Superfinal neither as a player nor as a person. I made absolutely nothing of his speech. Despite that, I do hope that Maxim is going to profit a lot from it.
Strong grandmaster and ancient philosophy connoisseur Aleksey Goganov
The narrow path into the Superfinal brought together two Chelyabinsk heroes - Alexander Riazantsev and Pavel Ponkratov. Both had huge Buchholz tiebreakers with one round to go, but the ultimate round day saw their opponents performing extremely poorly, whereas quite the opposite was the case with Goganov as one by one the points were dropping into his piggy bank. There were still only a few games underway in the tournament, while the fate of the qualification tickets was yet to be decided. Riazantsev was visibly upset, and when yet one of his opponents -- Sasha Predke -- resigned his game (his opponent from round one), the facial features of the women's national team coach started conveying his feelings of sadness and grief.
Alexander Riazantsev and Pavel Ponkratov - only one qualification ticket for two friends
Volkov – Predke
Round 9
Even though the powerful h2-passer is supposed to be Black's sure warranty against all potential mishaps, Alexander was bound to take care about the safety of his king: 49...Ra7 50.Kf6 Rf7+ 51.Kg6 Rd7 или 49...Ra8 50.Kf6 Rf8+ 51.Kg6 Re8. Predke, however, jumped at hasty conclusions about the black rook's lunge at White's home rank in that it should immediately sway his counterpart towards delivering a perpetual, thus allowing Volkov weaving a beautiful mating net.
49…Ra1? 50.Rg6+ Kh8 51.Rh6+ Kg8
Having repeated moves, the seasoned Sergey Volkov finds a winning continuation.
52.Ne7+! Kg7 53.Rg6+ Kh8
53...Kh7 54.Kf6 makes no difference at all.
54.Kf6!! h1Q 55.Rg8+ Kh7 56.Rg7+ Kh6 57.Nf5+, and it is the weak pawn that is going to deliver a decisive stab at the black king. Volkov ended up sharing 2-9 places and somewhat different scenarios of the ultimate round might have landed him in the Superfinal.
The Mordovian grandmaster wound up being the most productive tournament player - just have a look at his achievement record: Oganyan 0, Korniushin 1, Triapishko 1, Moiseenko 0, Sjugirov 0, Sarana 1, Bezgodov 1, Lobanov 1, Predke 1. One might only envy the fighting spirit of my Sochi-2016 teammate, but the bottom line is that the tricky drawing procedure paired the former Russian champion against only two opponents rated 2500+.
So, following this unpleasant moment there was a lot that Riazantsev depended on in terms of the outcome of the last tournament game still in progress, in which fighting without any hopes for salvation was his last tiebreaker points donor Dmitry Kryakvin - a scandalous metropolitan journalist, known for harsh attitude towards regional chess training centers.
Vavulin – Kryakvin
Round 9
Maxim has been recently demonstrating an outstanding type of performance, had a great Russian Team Championship (in the Higher League) while waging battles at board one; he was also among those contesting the victory at the Alekhine Memorial, having beefed up his rating to the current level of 2540. Black had hard time in his encounter against a young well-trained professional - I was contemplating resignation already as soon as move 15. Despite that, in the beginning I was pumping myself up that in case of resignation I would have to painfully wait for Danya Yuffa and Andrei Esipenko, but then, after the time control move was over, an inner voice suddenly commanded: "Imagine that you were Savchenko and start looking for only moves that would allow your staying in the game!" While pawns and pieces were gradually abandoning the board, the positional evaluation would remain unchanged despite all my efforts... In the end, we were still playing when all other games had already finished, having generated yet another "evergreen" example for an extended version of Mark Izrailovich's "Tragicomedy in the Endgame" manual...
Despite Black's blockade of the c8-square, the tragic point is that the white bishops are dominating the position, while the knight trade for a dark-squared tusked animal would result in a lost bishop ending.
98.Kb7 Nd6+ 99.Kb6??
Winning easily was 99.Bxd6+ Kxd6 100.Bb5 Bg4 101.Kb8 Kc5 102.Ba6 Kb6 103.Bc8 Be2 104.Bh3 Ba6 105.Bg2 Ka5 106.Bb7 – a draw, after all, might happen when the white king is on the d8-square and his black counterpart is on d6!
99...Nc8+ 100.Kb5 Nd6+??
Black returns the favor - 100...Bd3+! 101.Kb4 Ke6 would have engineered a barrier against infiltration of the white king.
101.Kb4??
Still winning was 101.Bxd6+ Kxd6 102.Kb6 Bc8 103.Bf3 – and the white king makes it to b8 owing to zugzwang ideas.
101...Bc8??
Black would not believe his luck and would not let his knight out into the wild - 101... Ne4 102.Bg1 Nf6 103.Kc5 Ne4+ 104.Kb6 Nc3, intending to sacrifice his brave knight for the pesky c7-pawn.
102.Kb3??
This is the last act of the drama - 102.Ka5 could have turned the scales in favor of White in this lengthy unfortunate matchup. Now Black, five hours since the game has started, delivers a series of relatively good moves for the first time in this game, which yields him an undeserved half point.
102...Ne4! 103.Be7 Ke6 104.Bb4 Nf6! 105.Kc4 Kf7 106.Kb5 Ne8 107.Kb6 Nxc7 108.Kxc7 Draw!
This terrible masterpiece fetched Riazantsev a golden half point of Buchholz and fourth place, Goganov becoming the fifth, while the unfortunate Pasha, coming so close to having the event of his life, ended up being sixth only...
"Thank God, it is over!" I said to the approaching Mikhail Krjukov, which Mikhail Vitalievich answered by sadly stating that the fifth participant of the Superfinal could not be immediately determined since Marina Nechaeva and Daria Charochkina wound up sharing both normal and truncated Buchholz with number of wins. Meanwhile, they have not played each other in the tournament. Despite the regulations providing for as many as four (!!!) additional tiebreakers, all of them turned out equal.
According to Krjukov, similar developments were already witnessed at the 2015 Rapid Junior Championship. Even though the Regulation did not specify this situation, champion was to be singled out anyway. In the end, the issue was taken to tiebreak, which was stipulated in the following year's tournament regulations. However, this one was neither an ordinary rapid tournament nor was it about junior girls, but a place in the Superfinal and a bunch of money were rather at stake here...
Mikhail Krjukov was up against a challenging task. As the closing ceremony was about to take place, it being about 10 p.m, the girls arrived in their best festive clothes... This said, both athletes have withstood the hardest of ultimate round tests. Dasha managed to salvage the game against Baira Kovanova, while Marina snatched victory from Ekaterina Kovalevskaya in a sharp struggle. However, the fifth participant was to be determined by all means. A while ago, in the 2008 Superfinal, chief arbiter Igor Bolotinsky postponed the Jakovenko - Svidler - Alekseev match tournament on the grounds that giving hard time to athletes was not justified for lack of appropriate entry in the tournament regulations. The battles between Dima, Evgeny and Peter Veniaminovich took place later. However, there was no extra day in Kolomna reserved to determine the fifth participant. Meanwhile, at present Nechaeva resides in Stavropol, making it difficult for her to meet Charochkina at the Moscow Central Chess Club anytime soon.
It was a horrible sight to see. Two girls, two friends were standing by the wall, not knowing what to do and what was going on. Krjukov offered them a choice between two options. The gracious option was a pain free toss of a coin. Option two was a fair-unfair blitz penalty followed by the Armageddon. Having said this, it went to the contrary of the classical nature of the tournament, strictly speaking. A classical and blitz formats nowadays belong to completely different categories, not only from the FIDE point of view, but also from that of the Ministry of Sports.
The girls opted for a fair-unfair option. Lips quivering and hands trembling, they were courteously escorted to a separate room and isolated from the rest of the crowd. Needless to say that I see Krjukov's ideas behind his actions because Marina and Dasha's state of mind was unmistakable and he wanted to at least bring in a droplet of peace into their disturbed souls. Could you please tell me, the Russian Championship (!!!) of what other type of sport has its additional contests carried out in isolated facilities while denying access inside for each and every living soul?
"Poor girls!" a group of compassionate male grandmasters was repeating over and over again when this moment finally arrived
As other tournament participants clung to the recreation room glass pane, noise of their discussing voices infiltrated through the glass. I suspect that at this moment chief arbiter requested that linesmen go out and reduce the outside commotion to silence, at which point the referee Pavel Tsipris was apparently seized by the desire to demonstrate Krjukov and Tkachev his zeal and can-do spirit as well as his capabilities to instantly and accurately accomplish missions assigned to him. The referee got down to dispersing the crowd, not being above using the force of his hands to better drive his point home. All this was happening with young boys and girls on the spot of action... It was an ugly scene. Everyone was forced to leave and could only guess as to what was going on inside the playroom.
I wish I had a picture for this review of the referee dispersing the crowd
Some twenty minutes later the doors opened to let out the barely alive Charochkina with a faint smile on her face. She won 2:0. This is how the Higher League of the Russian Championship in Kolomna has come to an end.
Men's Tournament Final Standings: 1. Oparin - 6½ out of 9; 2. Fedoseev, 3. Kokarev, 4. Riazantsev, 5. Goganov, 6. Ponkratov, 7. Zvjaginsev, 8. Sjugirov, 9. Volkov – all with 6 points.
Women's Tournament Final Standings: 1. Ovod – 7 out of 9; 2. Pustovoitova, 3. А. Kashlinskaya, 4. Е. Ubiennykh - 6½; 5. Charochkina, 6. Nechaeva, 7. Vasilevich, 8. А. Maltsevskaya - all with 6 points.
