Qualifier tournaments July/August

„World Chess Tour” and Championship of the Moscow Blitz Chess - Qualifier Tournaments

In the end of July RSUPES&T has become a plaing venue for the tournaments of a new format. Until the classical round-robin chess events (rating and with GM and IM norms) and not great swiss tournaments were held, but this time the start was given to the speed time control events, which are the Qualifiers of the „World Chess Tour 2009/10” too.
On Wednesday July 30th the blitz-tournament (with FIDE official blitz time control: 3 min. + 2 sec.bonus) has taken place. Under the arrangements with the management of the Chess Federation it was held also as a Semi-final of the Moscow Blitz Chess, where among 16 players from 4 countries 5 GM have participated. GM Alexey Korotylev (Moscow) with 7 points from 8 games became the sure winner, the 2nd-3rd places were occupied by the GMs Igor Glek (Germany) and Evgeny Romanov (Kaliningrad) – 6 p. followed by Gleb Apryshko and Dmitry Filinberg – both 5.5.
The ‘World Chess Tour’ events establish also certain prizes for the additional categories – age, rating, and special –VIP, fans, disabled (under the condition of a minimally demanded number of the participants in each category). On Wednesday the 1st prize in the rating category of 2150-2199 (so called “Experts” category in accordance with the WCT classification) was won by the International Master Dmitry Losev.

On Saturday July 31st the participants of the speed chess tournament have met more innovations.  
Firstly, the tournament itself was the mix of the speed chess and blitz: average time for the game for each participant was 10 minutes (plus additional bonus – 1 second after each move);
Secondly, the game was held with the time handicap – players with the lower rating have been receiving the advantage. These tournaments had been distributed widely last time – for example, in Moscow (in Dvorkovitch Gostinaya, Central Chess House (CCH), Giprorechtrans, RAGS and others) and Berlin a lot of tournaments of such kind are held in which VIP-players – stars of sports, culture, showbiz, famous politicians, businessmen take part.  
Thirdly, the new system (for Russia) of holding tournaments – Olympic-Swiss -was tried: the participants had started the competition under Olympic (knockout) system, but those who lost had not left the tournament as it usually happens in such events. In the world of chess the tournaments under the Olympic (knockout) system are not much – the most famous are FIDE World Cup tournaments (three last of them had been held in Khanty-Mansiysk in 2005, 2007 and 2009) put into practice by the long-term FIDE and Calmickia Republic leader Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. In some other kinds of sports almost all great competitions are held just under knockout system.
The disadvantage of this system for chess is the point that left participants can not fight more for the prizes, titles and rating. And Olympic-Swiss system used earlier in one the greatest world tournaments – Viyck an Zee (Holland) and than later in now popular international festivals in Dresden (Germany) – in classical and speed chess – is challenged to destruct this fault. So, on one hand the winner of the tournament becomes the player who has won all the games (like in tennis) what is extremely fair, and on the other hand this system of holding is more incommensurably interesting for the Mass Media and fans – the final and semi-final games, the last fight for the first place, etc.Also this system is more clear in case of defining the winner- in the „clearly” Swiss tournaments it is often situaton when the first place is devided among the great number of player with the equal points, sometimes 10 or more, thus the winner is appointed in accordance with the additional technical and absolutely unclear to the public indexes. And this fact do not add more interest to the game. Finally, in the tournaments under the mix system the players who have lost their game did not leave the competition but continue to fight for the third place, prizes,titles, rating, etc. It seems that nowdays this system of holding will become popular in Russia. Fourthly, the following implementation can be considered as very promising: the entry fee for the players differs. Depending on the possibilities and desires of the participants the fee can be 100 roubles as well as 1 million! The partipants who pay the higher fees plays between themselves the most part of the prize-fund in their category. 
So, on Saturday 14 players has started the competition in accordance with new rules: among them 3 GM and 4 IM. Unfortunately for us at the same day the Sport administration of the Moscow government organized big sport festival, which program included the Semi-final of Moscow Chess Blitz Ch which had gathered almost hundred players that of course drew off the considerable number of prospective participants. 
Time control (with the slight difference in rating) was 10 minutes with addition of 1 second after each move. In case of significant individual indexes’ difference the player with the lower rating had been receiving the head start: from 11 minutes versus 9 up to 18 minutes versus 2! Of course these conditions had given special coloring to the occasion.  
In accordance with the number of participants the tours quantity was defined to six and in the semi-finals and in the final the players who had won till that moment all their games had to play 2 games at that, whereas the players who had left the competition to the “open” were receiving the possibility to catch up with the players of the semi-finals and continue the fight for the 3rd and other prizes. 
1 round –1/8 of the final
As the number of the participants was not multiple of 8 both rating-favorites – metropolitan Grandmasters, the blitz winner Alexey Korotylev and the representative of Germany Vitaly Kunin – had gone to the next round without fight. In other matches stubborn fight had taken place and finally 6 winners had gone to the next round. 
2 round – 1/4 of the final:
The Grandmasters Alexey Korotylev and Igor Glek (despite of the significant head start in the game with the Moscow champion U18 Alexey Ustinov), Moscow ex-champion International |Master Anatoly Kremenetscky and 15-years-old Gleb Aprishco (not long time ago he had done the Master’s norm in the round-robin tournament that was held in RSUPES&T where he had successfully played against the Grandmaster Vitaly Kunin) had gone to the semi-final.
3 round – the semi-finals:
In both semi-finals the fight was really stubborn. The senior Anatoly Kremenetsky (after he had done draws in two main speed games) had very goon chances in the decisive blitz-game with Alexey Korotylev after his mistake (so called Armageddon game where white had advantage in time but had to win) but the Grandmaster had stood his ground. Another game Glek-Aprishco had finished with the result 2:0. Of course it doesn’t show all the tenseness of the game. Its enough to say that in second game the Grandmaster had won endgame without bishop.
So 4th round – the Grandmasters’ final: Korotylev-Glek. In the first game “the field’s master” Deputy Chairman of Moscow Sport University Chess Chair Igor Glek who played black succeeded in taking over the initiative gradually and then he had finished the game with the tactical attack. Under the arrangement with the tournament’s partner the company “SportUniverFitness” (www.sportunifit.ru, President – A.Y.Ainulaev) the second game was held in the big sports hall located near universal sports-entertainment complex RSUPES&T (more known as sports complex “Izmaylovo”, www.uszk.ru). The video of the final game is projected to be used further for advertising of the competitions. 
The second game of the final had developed rather calmly – it seemed nothing could prevent the victory of GM Igor Glek who at that moment had won all his games in the competition. Although in some moment the white had lost the pawn the compensation occurred to be enough. But evidently busy schedule (many questions of the event had to be resolved on the run) had affected his game adversely and finally GM Alexey Korotylev had won this fight.
Now everything depended on the blitz-game. It seemed that this time Alexey Korotylev as a very experienced blitz-player had more chances. He had to play white by lot. It meant that he had to win and as compensation he had the time advantage. But he could not develop the initiative – the debut results showed the best position of black and the RSUPES&T lecturer had won with confidence although in this situation it was enough to make a draw. Our congratulations to Igor Glek with his deserved success that is pleasant for him especially because the tournament was done in accordance with system developed himself and so finally here it is the award for his creative work. 
The attentive reader can think that the games of the simultaneously held ”tournament inside the tournament” (Swiss chess) have bee kept in the background of the knockout games. But its not quite like that. Of course, the general attention of the audience was engrossed by the leaders\ games, but nevertheless the games held at the same time could not be called consoling - the competitors had fought for prizes in the absolute category as well as for the victory in their rating and age categories. So finally the most number of pont was taken by International Master Dmitry Losev who had won in the last round game against his title colleague Anatoly Kremetsky. Losev had taken the third place (after two finalists- Grandmasters) and the last 4th prize was taken by 15-years-okd Gleb Aprishco. Also there were special prizes in the most numerous categories: rating 2150-2299 (in accordance with the classification established by I.Glek in the “World Chess Tour” this category is called ”Experts” and approximately corresponds to the title of the “FIDE Master”, find more details on www.chess-events.org/ru_RU/rgm-wct.html#glava5 and www.chess-events.org/ru_RU/klassifikatsiya-vidov-shahmatnoj-deyatelnosti.html) The general “expert” on the tournament had appeared to be the guest from Saratov – 13-years-old Vasily Korchmar (actually Gleb Aprishco had won more points but Vasily had taken one of the first prizes). Among seniors one of the successful players for the most part of the games (which he had won) was International Master Anatoly Kremenetsky who had celebrated his 70-th jubilee last year. Unfortunately for him in the last round he had occurred to be lower than Yury Alexeevich Alekhin who is no t only the bearer of the same family name as the world champion but also the Chairman of the Moscow Chess Federation seniors’ commission. Next year Yury Alexeevich is going to celebrate his 80-th jubilee. So, experience means very much!
Although of course in new uncommon circumstances it was not very easy for everybody: for the players – to play, for the tournament’s secretary Vladimir Perevertkin to hold the draw (moreover the partners from Germany were not able to send in time the all necessary program files and he had to do everything “manually” what he had done really successfully), for us – “the judges on the line” – to judge, because we had to put the time for the participants in accordance with their rating, make photos and one of us had to participate in the tournament to save the even number of the competitors after leaving one of the players. So we hope that our first experience is successful! We are fully confident that all innovations will become common for the players, for the judges and for the fans!
On July 20-21 the round-robin blitz chess events were held on the Chess Chair. The famous Moscow specialist in the speed play Grandmaster Sergey Shipov with 6 points of 7 had become the winner of the blitz (on the 2-nd place International Master Vadim Karpov – 5.5 and 3-4 places – the Grandmaster Igor Glek and International Master Daniil Dubov). And Deputy Chairman of the RSUPES&T Chess Chair Igor Glek had showed his superiority in speed chess with handicap where he had won 4 games from 5. 2-4 places were divided between FIDE Master Konstantin Mesropov (3 points), the winner of the July Masters’ tournament in RSUPES&T Pavel Rozanov and Evgeny Kretov (recently taken the second place in one of the semi-finals of Moscow Blitz Chess). The third prize-winner of the Moscow Blitz Chess U16 11-years-old Volodya Minko was the fifth with 1.5 points. And the last place in thq table of given to the the winner of the Seniors Moscow Blitz Chess 64-years-old Vladimir Voevodin (although he had taken only 0.5 points but fought persistently in each game even the winner of the tournament).
The next speed chess and blitz qualifier events of the “World Chess Tour” will take place in RSUPES&T on 15-18 of September. It is expected that there will be a lot of women chess players because at the same time in RGSU (Russian State Social University) the qualifiers (1/4 of the final and the semi-finals) and then the final of the World Women FIDE Blitz Championship will tale place. So the participants of that event who will leave after the qualifiers will receive the possibility to take part several times in September as well as in October 3-5 when some tournaments of such kind are planned to be hold (among them Open and special VIP-Open tournaments). 
On September 1st the classical chess regular round-robin tournaments “NON-STOP” series with the GM and IM norms will start on the Chess Chair. The special intrigue is expected to be in the GM tournament where we will see the fight of two the most perhaps talented young chess players of the planet nowadays: the 13-yers-old Ilya Nizhnik from Ukraine (with the highest rating among chess players under 14) and the Muscovite Daniil Dubov who is yet the third in this category. Both (we hope yet!) International Masters will do their best to make the GM norm. If for Ilya who already has two norms the next success means the immediate change of the title which he will can get on the annual International Chess Federation Congress (www.fide.com) in Khanty-Mansiysk during the World Chess Olympiad than for Daniil it is the first step to begin winning GM norms. Also one of the strongest young Russian chess players the world champion among girls Vera Nebolsina has given her consent to participate in the tournament. Another young talented chess players are expected to take part in this event too. We are confident that all the competitions will be performed in intense fascinating fight and will attract much interest from different audience!  

Ekaterina Pylaeva,
Natalya Mironova
The students of the RSUPES&T Chess Chair