2009 World Team Championship (Bursa, Turkey)

The World Team championship got off to an interesting start with traditional rivalries being played out. Azerbaijan (2009 European Champion) pencils in their full squad against Armenia (defending Olympiad champions). A couple of years back, tensions mounted between the two teams as Teimour Radjabov made some critical comments about Armenia pertaining to a political dispute. As far as the match, no controversy brewed and the Azeris took a 2½-1½ decision with Shahkriyar Mamedyarov getting the win over GM Arman Pashikian.

Egypt and Israel have share some tense moments in history, but in chess this was uneventful as Israel routed the Egyptians 3-1. Top boards for Egypt Ahmed Adly and Bassem Amin drew with Michael Roiz and Ilya Smirin, respectively. The two IMs for Egypt dropped their games giving the margin of victory.

In other action, the USA crushed Turkey, but the host nation scored an upset win on board #3 with IM Emre Can beating GM Yury Shulman. The American team is playing without Gata Kamsky but look to vye for a team medal with Hikaru Nakamura on board #1. Russia beat Brazil on the strength of Alexander Grischuk’s win. Grischuk is not skipping a beat from his Russian Championship crown won a week earlier.

India beat the surprise wildcard in Greece. There has been buzzing around the chess world about this selection since there are many strong teams who could have participated. France, Spain and Cuba may have taken the opportunity. Nevertheless Greece hopes to gain some upset victories. It was not to be against the young India team. Nineteen-year old GM Arun Prasad beat Stelios Halkias to give India the win.

FIDE President’s Meeting: (L-R) Ali Nihat Yacizi, Ignatius Leong, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Georgios Makropulos, Nigel Freeman.

Greece has done the unthinkable… first they beat the top seed and then totally crush the defending Olympiad champion, Armenia! Greece got here as a wildcard choice and it appears this admission comes to the chagrin of the strongest teams. Greece has become the “spoiler” and has certainly put Armenia’s medal chances in jeopardy. Armenia plays Russia tomorrow in a key match for both.

The match was hard fought as Aronian-Kotronias was an exciting battle featuring both players trying to mate with queen and knight. The game appropriately ended in a draw. Akopian was simply outplayed by Papaioannou and was so beleaguered that he played a rook down for several moves.

By this time, Petrosian had already been demolished by Halkias in 29 moves. Akopian ended up in zugzwang and finally ceded the point. Sargissian-Banikas was a hard fought draw, making the final tally 3-1. They are dancing in the streets in Athens!

Azerbaijan and Israel played to an interesting drawn match. Mamedyarov-Sutovsky was a fascinating match featuring a position where black had two queens while white was trying to mate with his queen, knight and five pawns. The game ended in a three-fold repetition. The other games were drawn without much fanfare.

The USA went into today’s match highly confident against their regional comrades. Vescovi is out of form and the Brazilian team has sunk near the bottom of the charts. Nakamura and Akobian scored wins leading the team to a 3-1 victory. The USA gets ‘giant-killer’ Greece in the next round. It is a crucial match, but the USA may play one of their two young stars, Hess or Robson. Nakamura is on 4½/5 for a 3035 performance rating.

The hardest fought match of the round and perhaps the tournament was between Egypt and Turkey as both are fighting for every hard-earned point. While Adly walked over Haznedaroglu in a Najdorf, the board sizzled in Amin-Erdogdu.

Pieces zipped across the board at a frenetic pace as both had a pair of bishops in the open board. Erdogdu tempted Amin into a kingside attack with 37…Ra4, but after 38. Qxh6+ Kg8 39. Qg6+ Kh8 40. Rxa4 Qc6. Erdogdu had placed his hopes on the mating pattern on the long diagonal, but overlooked the nice shot 41.Rh4+! netting a piece. Board three featured a positional queen sacrifice and the Turkish player wrapped the win in 80 moves with his two rooks. Sixteen-year old FM Burah Firat beat Egyptian veteran Imed Abdelnabbi giving Turkey their first match point of the tournament.

In India-Russia, Vitiugov launched a vicious kingside attach after which Arun had to jettison a pawn to survive. The Russian held onto the pawn, went into the ending and pocketed the point. Russia held on the other three boards giving them a 2½-1½ for their fourth match win in a row. They did lose a half-point to the USA and now are tied with identical match and board points. Russia beat the Americans 3-1 in their head-to-head match, so this may be a key tiebreaker.

The USA is taking no chances today against Greece and is fielding their strongest lineup. They will be looking to gain on Russia who gets an angry Armenia. Ought to be an interesting match.

I’m not 100% sure of USA’s strategy of fielding that team against Greece. I would have considered starting either Hess or Robson in place of Shulman (1½/5). The question will be the fatigue factor against Armenia and Azerbaijan. Shulman isn’t playing well and only Nakamura and Onischuk are playing stellar chess. Akobian is on +1 so he’s fine. Russia is heavily favored against Egypt, but they may draw out the top two boards and crush on #3 and #4.

Everything rides on this crucial penultimate round!!

Russia took care of business today by blasting Egypt off the boards to edge back into 1st. The USA missed a golden opportunity to hold the lead and lost to defending Olympiad champions Armenia.

The big game was Aronian taking the white pieces against Nakamura who was in form and had won a brilliant game in the King’s Indian against Gelfand. The two would have another theoretical argument in the KID and Aronian sidestepped Nakamura’s preparation with a Karpovian 19.Ncd1. This manuever help to bolster the kingside defense to prevent the type of kingside avalanche that crushed Gelfand.

Nakamura and Aronian battling! Akopian on the move.

The game entered into tremendous complications, but it became clear that the U.S. Champion wouldn’t have his way on the kingside. Nakamura tried to counter in the center, but never got an attack going. Aronian offered a couple of exchange sacrifices and burrowed through on the queenside. After weathering the complications, the Armenian had a winning advantage and this decided the match.

There was not much to say about Russia’s beatdown of Egypt. It appears that Egypt presumably rested Adly so he can vie for medal contention tomorrow. However, Egypt put up resistance on board #1 where Grischuk and Amin agreed to a draw in an opposite-colored bishop ending. It was the lone bright spot of the match. If Russia gets the probable 2-2 draw with Israel, the USA would need to beat Azerbaijan with a 4-0 score to win the gold. There is not a bookmaker in Las Vegas who would take that bet!

Vugar Gashimov kibitzes Athanasios Mastrovasilis–Rauf Mamedov. The game was draw, but the Azeri team won 3-1 putting them in joint 3rd with India place for medal contention.

Azerbaijan meted out similar punishment on a Greece team that had defeated both Russia and Armenia. This time Azerbaijan woke up and delivered crushing wins on boards #2 and #3 for a 3-1 victory. Gashimov played to bare kings with Kotronias and will go into tomorrow’s match having broke a four-game winless streak. Radjabov and Mamedyarov (7½/8) won their games and Rauf Mamedov held a draw an exchange down against Mastrovasilis.

India beat a slumping Israel and remains in medal contention. They will get the easiest pairing when they face Brazil on tomorrow. Armenia faces Russia and Azerbaijan faces the USA. Ganguly got the deciding win by beating Postny and munching all of his pawns reminiscent of the old video game, “Pac Man.” Israel is winnless in the last four matches (+0 =1 -3) and will get Russia in the last round. Will the Israelis try to go out with a bang or will they sue for peace?

Turkey battled Brazil today riding a two-match unbeaten string. However they were unable to carry momentum from win over Israel. Haznedaroglu did beat Vescovi on board #1, but Brazil took wins on boards #2 and #3. Board #4 was drawn between two young stars. The six-time Brazilian championship Vescovi has had a tough tournament.

After Russia pulled atop the field yesterday, the question was not whether they would win, but by how much. Bloggers on chess servers were analyzing all the possible scenarios, but Russia ended all speculation by soundly beating a beleaguered Israeli team 3-1 to win the gold. It capped an exciting tournament with many surprises. One of the most prominent surprises was Russia’s loss to Greece, the only one they would suffer. Russia’s deep lineup was able to compensate for Morozevich’s poor form.

Alexander Grischuk (front) leading Team Russia to gold.

This win for Russia was extremely important since the federation had not won a team honor since the World Team Championship in 2005. They have been shut out of medals the past three Olympiad despite having powerful teams. The upcoming Olympiad should be interesting since the Russia squad will add Kramnik and perhaps Karjakin. This formidable team will still have to work very hard to avoid the occasional lapse seen in the Olympiad.

The USA took the silver medal by drawing with Azerbaijan. It is certainly an improvement over their two bronze medals in the last two Olympiad. The last round was uneventful as all the games were decided just after the 30-move requirement. It would have taken a complete collapse for Russia to lose the gold.

The “new age” team is led by Nakamura with Onischuk providing a solid reinforcement. We may be witnessing the changing of the guard as the USA presented GMs Hess and Robson as the future competitors. While they didn’t get much playing time, the experience must have been valuable. With Kamsky added to the Olympiad team, the USA could pose a serious threat in the Siberian Olympiad this fall.

GM Surya Ganguly
Gold Medallist, board #3
(Score: 5/7, TPR: 2804)

India shined throughout the tournament with solid performances by Sasikiran (5½/9) and Ganguly (5/7). The key to India’s success appeared to be competitive in each match. Only the U.S. team was able to snatch three points from them and this stability helped them against the strong teams. Sasikiran finally showed the leadership that had been lacking in other team events where he appeared stuck in “draw mode”. His inspired play will be needed if Anand doesn’t play in the Olympiad. India has an immense pool of talent and with Geetha Gopal, Parimarjan Negi, Arun Prasad and Abhijeet Gupta, they have one of the most impressive young GM corps in the world.

Azerbaijan was an outside favorite to win this event, but Gashimov was in poor form and Mamedyarov’s stellar performance (8/9) would not compensate. The strategy of using Mamedyarov on board #4 is questionable. Certainly he demolished his weaker opponents, but he would have been more effective on top boards against the elite players. The Azeris have a young, but experienced team and they have a young talent in 17-year old Eltaj Safarli (2594) who hopes to be in Siberia this fall.

Greece has an interesting tournament. First, it was a wildcard selection which was most likely due to lobbying by FIDE Deputy President Georgios Makropulos. Some criticized the choice citing the Ukraine, Spain and Cuba as more suitable choices, but the Greeks were able to make an impression by upsetting both Russia and Armenia. This result again shows how the gap has closed in the information age where preparation plays a major role.

Brazil, Egypt and Turkey brought up the rear, but each were able to draw some experience from the event. The Brazilian team got a strong performance from Rafael Leitao (4.5/8, 2677 TPR), but it wasn’t enough to offset Vescovi’s poor form (1/7). The Brazilians have a promising talent in Diamant and hopefully will be at full strength in Siberia.

Egypt had a strong performance by Ahmed Adly who was in medal contention until the last round loss to Aronian. He had beaten Gashimov earlier. Abdel-Razik got redemption by crushing Armenia’s Petrosian in the last round in a beautiful attack. The Egyptians were missing GM Essam El-Gindy and relied on Sarwat and Abdelnabbi who primarily serve as trainers these days.

The host team Turkey was the face of the tournament. Each day they were dressed in uniforms and were diplomatic despite being overmatched. Turkey has a lot to cheer about having beaten Israel, the Olympiad silver medalists. The world also got to see a nice sacrificial idea from IM Emre Can in his game against Yury Shulman.

IM Emre Can appears to be part of the future of Turkish chess. The 19-year old showed great creativity in his game with GM Yury Shulman.

Things are looking well for Turkey’s future and Ali Nihat Yacizi’s ambitious plan to popularize chess in Turkey seems to be successful. We look forward to bigger and better things in 2012 when Turkey will host the Olympiad!

All Games
Results from Round #9
Standings

Nice article in U.S. Chess Life Online. John Donaldson stated…

The many great players who struggled (Gelfand, Gashimov and Morozevich were all below 50 percent) is testimony to how difficult the event was. Russia was a deserving winner with their depth the deciding difference. This was my eleventh time as US captain, and although the teams have been pretty successful (1 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze team medals) I cannot ever recall anything resembling the performances of Hikaru and Alex on boards one and two. They played exceptionally well with Hikaru showing yet again that he is among the best in the world and Alex that he plays like a 2700 player.

front: GM Robert Hess, GM Varuzhan Akobian, GM Hikaru Nakamura, middle: GM Ray Robson, GM Yury Shulman and GM Alexander Onischuk with captain IM John Donaldson in the back. Photo Tony Rich of CCSCSL.