Ukraine Shocks Russia In 1st Round World Teams
Top favorite Russia had a bad start at the World Team Championship in Tsaghkadzor with a first-round loss to Ukraine. Armenia also went down, against Israel.
The pairings of the World Team Championship resulted in a match between the number-one and two-seeded teams in the very first round. Russia came to Tsaghkadzor with clear intentions, bringing a squad of five 2730+ players! Nevertheless, it lost right away.
In a match where three games ended in draws (including Karjakin-Ivanchuk on board one), Ukraine's GM Pavel Eljanov's win over GM Evgeny Tomashevsky proved decisive:
More or less the same happened in the Armenia-Israel match. Board one (Gelfand-Aronian) was drawn, and so were boards two and three. GM Vladimir Akopian, a member of the golden Olympic team in 2006, 2008 and 2012, couldn't help his team this time:
And if we continue the theme, the U.S. loss to higher rated China was rather acceptable with again three draws. Board one decided this match, where half of the game was an interesting queen ending with lots of pawns:
Egypt is by far the lowest-rated participant, and so it...will be learning a lot in this tournament. In the first round Egypt lost 3-1 to India but scored one win. Mohamed Ezat refuted S.P. Sethuraman's reckless play in an important variation of the Caro-Kann:
Hungary and Cuba tied 2-2 with two wins and two draws each. Quesada showed how to play as White against the Modern: as aggressive as possible. Rapport didn't have much of a chance.
A mystery is the following game, which is given as 0-1 both in the game score and on the results page. White is completely winning in the final position. We've emailed Balogh for an explanation.
Update: the colors were mixed up in the database. Corrected now, Balogh won as White:
2015 World Teams | Round 1 Results
| 1.1 | 1 | Egypt | 1 - 3 | 10 | India | ||
| 1 | GM | Shoker Samy | 2482 | 0 : 1 | GM | Harikrishna P. | 2731 |
| 2 | IM | Ezat Mohamed | 2479 | 1 : 0 | GM | Sethuraman S.P. | 2634 |
| 3 | GM | Adly Ahmed | 2595 | 0 : 1 | GM | Vidit Santosh Gujrathi | 2630 |
| 4 | IM | Farahat Ali | 2389 | 0 : 1 | GM | Sengupta Deep | 2576 |
| 1.2 | 2 | Israel | 2½ - 1½ | 9 | Armenia | ||
| 1 | GM | Gelfand Boris | 2747 | ½ : ½ | GM | Aronian Levon | 2770 |
| 2 | GM | Sutovsky Emil | 2628 | ½ : ½ | GM | Sargissian Gabriel | 2674 |
| 3 | GM | Smirin Ilia | 2652 | ½ : ½ | GM | Movsesian Sergei | 2665 |
| 4 | GM | Rodshtein Maxim | 2667 | 1 : 0 | GM | Akopian Vladimir | 2656 |
| 1.3 | 3 | Ukraine | 2½ - 1½ | 8 | Russia | ||
| 1 | GM | Ponomariov Ruslan | 2713 | ½ : ½ | GM | Grischuk Alexander | 2794 |
| 2 | GM | Ivanchuk Vassily | 2731 | ½ : ½ | GM | Karjakin Sergey | 2757 |
| 3 | GM | Eljanov Pavel | 2733 | 1 : 0 | GM | Tomashevsky Evgeny | 2745 |
| 4 | GM | Kryvoruchko Yuriy | 2686 | ½ : ½ | GM | Jakovenko Dmitry | 2744 |
| 1.4 | 4 | Cuba | 2 - 2 | 7 | Hungary | ||
| 1 | GM | Dominguez Perez Leinier | 2729 | ½ : ½ | GM | Leko Peter | 2713 |
| 2 | GM | Bruzon Batista Lazaro | 2691 | ½ : ½ | GM | Almasi Zoltan | 2698 |
| 3 | GM | Quesada Perez Yuniesky | 2629 | 1 : 0 | GM | Rapport Richard | 2710 |
| 4 | GM | Ortiz Suarez Isan Reynaldo | 2612 | 0 : 1 | GM | Balogh Csaba | 2651 |
| 1.5 | 5 | China | 2½ - 1½ | 6 | USA | ||
| 1 | GM | Ding Liren | 2751 | 1 : 0 | GM | Shankland Samuel L | 2661 |
| 2 | GM | Yu Yangyi | 2724 | ½ : ½ | GM | Lenderman Aleksandr | 2617 |
| 3 | GM | Bu Xiangzhi | 2681 | ½ : ½ | GM | Onischuk Alexander | 2665 |
| 4 | GM | Wei Yi | 2703 | ½ : ½ | GM | Akobian Varuzhan | 2622 |
The World Team Championship takes place April 18-29 at the Golden Palace Hotel Resort & Spa in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia. The Women's World Team Championship, which is also under way 5,385 km and four time zones away, will be covered separately.
Previous reports:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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