CHESS#1251

The Russian Teams Championship is always guaranteed to produce super games and cutthroat contests.
 
The only comparable team event in terms of quality would be the German Bundesliga. That’s a round robin of 15 matches, held across a seven month period with bursts of a few rounds at a time played at different times, in different locales. The Bundesliga concluded in early May with Baden-Baden as champions for the 11 time in 12 seasons. Anand scored 3 from 4 games to help Baden-Baden. That team also includes Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Levon Aronian.
 
The Russian teams is a single-locale event. This year in Sochi, Siberia’s Sirius is guaranteed the premier title. Sirius has 12 match-points from six matches (two for win/ one for draw) at the time of writing in the eight team Round Robin Premier League. The Moscow team “Legacy Square” is on 9, while Malakhit is 7. Defending Champions “Bronze Horsemen” of St Petersburg are on 6.  The standout performer for Sirius has been Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (3/3) and Alexander Grischuk (3/4) has also done well. Vladimir Kramnik, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Anish Giri (whose mother is Russian) are also part of Sirius.
 
Mamedyarov is now up to #7 on the live rating list after coupling hot form in Sochi to a superb victory at the Gashimov Memorial. The Azeri GM has fabulous tactical skills. He doesn’t have a “second gear” - he can’t throttle back if he’s in trouble. This has meant inconsistency but he’s awesome when he’s on a roll.
 
Malakhit’s 65-year-old “non-playing captain/ coach”, Anatoly Karpov, opted to play, on Board 1 in a key match versus St Petersburg. The 12th World champion is still a formidable competitor. Karpov kept Peter Svidler under steady pressure, and Svidler had to work very hard to scrape a draw.
 
Obit notice: The chess community will mourn Pabitra Mohan Mohanty (1952-2017) who passed away on May 6. Pabitra-babu was a wonderful human being and a fixture for Orissa in the Nationals in the 1970s and 80s. His legendary endgame skills often compensated for his lack of theoretical knowledge.
 
The DIAGRAM,  BLACK TO PLAY (White: Najer Vs Black : Mamedyarov, Russian Teams Chp 2017) is a nice example of Shakhriyar’s flowing attacking style.  He played  22.— Qh4 [Obviously 23.gxf5 Qg3+ 24.Kh1 Rf6 is winning] White played 23.Kg2  Nxf3! 24.Bxf3 Be5.
 
A nice if trivial mate comes after 24.Kxf3 Be4+ 25.Kxe4 Rbe8#]
 
Now the continuation is forced due to the threat of Qh2. White played. 25.Rh1 Qg3+ 26.Kf1 Bd3+ 27.Be2 Rxb2!  The only winning move, which Evgeny Najer, a top-class tactician himself, may have missed, or seen too late.  Black won after 28.Qxb2 Qxe3 29.Bxd3 cxd3 30.Rc2 dxc2 31.Qxc2 Rxf2+ 32.Qxf2 Qxc3 33.Kg2 Qc4 (0-1).

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player