China beats Russia in classical part

24 September 2008, 12.09 CET | Last modified: 12:10 | By Peter Doggers  | Filed under: Reports | Tags:

The first part of the China-Russia match, which consisted of five rounds of classical chess, is over. China proved the strongest, but by a small margin: 26-24. In our second report we’ll see that the it were the Russian ladies who prevented a bigger loss.

This year’s match between Russia and China takes place 18-27 September in the city of Ningpo, China. The first phase in this match (which follows the Scheveningen sytem) consisted of five rounds with the FIDE time control, which was won by China 26-24. Yesterday was a free day; today, tomorrow and Friday the teams will play rapid chess and on the final day, September 27, a blitz match.

China - Russia 2008 Teams

Russia (men)	Rtg	China (men)	Rtg	Russia (women)	Rtg	China (women)	Rtg
Peter Svidler	2738	Bu Xiangzhi	2710	Tatiana Kosintseva	2511	Zhao Xue	2522
Dmitry Jakovenko	2709	Ni Hua	2705	Natalija Pogonina	2469	Ruan Lufei	2499
Evgeny Alekseev	2708	Wang Yue	2704	Nadezhda Kosintseva	2460	Xu Yuhua	2483
Ernesto Inarkiev	2675	Wang Hao	2691	Ekaterina Korbut	2459	Shen Yang	2445
Evgeny Tomshevsky	2646	Li Chao	2590	Ekaterina Kovalevskaya	2435	Huang Qian	2430
Average	2695		2680		2467		2476

In our first report we predicted that without Morozevich, Kramnik and Grischuk it wouldn’t be easy for the Russians to take revenge for last year’s loss. And indeed, if we only look at the men’s section, we see that the Russian team tied three matches, and lost two with 3.5-1.5.

The women teams exchanged two ties and two 3.5-1.5 victories each, but in the last round Russia beat China 3.5-1.5 one more time, to make the overall score somewhat acceptable.

China - Russia 2008 Results Rounds 1-5

Round 1	Men				Women
1	Svidler,P	½-½	Bu Xiangzhi		Zhao Xue	½-½	Kosintseva,T
2	Tomashevsky	½-½	Ni Hua		Huang Qian	½-½	Kosintseva,N
3	Wang Yue	½-½	Inarkiev		Korbut	0-1	Shen Yang
4	Wang Hao	1-0	Jakovenko		Pogonina	1-0	Ruan Lufei
5	Li Chao	1-0	Alekseev		Kovalevskaya	½-½	Xu Yuhua
Round 2
1	Ni Hua	1-0	Svidler		Xu Yuhua	0-1	Korbut
2	Li Chao	0-1	Tomashevsky		Kovalevskaya	1-0	Huang Qian
3	Inarkiev	0-1	Wang Hao		Kosintseva,N	1-0	Zhao Xue
4	Alekseev	½-½	Wang Yue		Ruan Lufei	½-½	Kosintseva,T
5	Jakovenko	1-0	Bu Xiangzhi		Shen Yang	1-0	Pogonina
Round 3
1	Bu Xiangzhi	½-½	Alekseev		Huang Qian	0-1	Pogonina
2	Tomashevsky	½-½	Wang Hao		Sheng Yang	½-½	Kovalevskaya
3	Inarkiev	½-½	Li Chao		Kosintseva,N	½-½	Ruan Lufei
4	Ni Hua	½-½	Jakovenko		Kosintseva, T	0-1	Xu Yuhua
5	Svidler	½-½	Wang Yue		Zhao Xue	½-½	Korbut
Round 4
1	Wang Yue	1-0	Tomashevsky		Xu Yuhua	½-½	Kosintseva,N
2	Jakovenko	0-1	Li Chao		Kosintseva,T	0-1	Shen Yang
3	Bu Xiangzhi	1-0	Inarkiev		Korbut	½-½	Huang Qian
4	Alekseev	1-0	Ni Hua		Ruan Lufei	1-0	Kovalevskaya
5	Wang Hao	½-½	Svidler		Pogonina	½-½	Zhao Xue
Round 5
1	Wang Yue	½-½	Jakovenko		Xu Yuhua	½-½	Pogonina
2	Li Chao	½-½	Svidler		Kovalevskaya	½-½	Zhao Xue
3	Inarkiev	½-½	Ni Hua		Korbut	1-0	Ruan Lufei
4	Tomashevsky	½-½	Bu Xiangzhi		Shen Yang	½-½	Kosintseva, N
5	Alekseev	½-½	Wang Hao		Huang Qian	0-1	Kosintseva, T

China - Russia 2008 Round 5 Score

Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Score
China (men)	3.5	2.5	2.5	3.5	2.5						14.5
China (women)	2.5	1.5	2.5	3.5	1.5						11.5
China (total)	6.0	4.0	5.0	7.0	4.0						26.0
Russia (men)	1.5	2.5	2.5	1.5	2.5						10.5
Russia (women)	2.5	3.5	2.5	1.5	3.5						13.5
Russia (total)	4.0	6.0	5.0	3.0	6.0						24.0

Here are the decisive games from rounds 4 and 5 for replay:

Here’s a second selection of photos, kindly provided by Mark Gluhovsky who travelled with the Russian team to China to report for his magazine “64″ and for the website of the Russian Chess Federation:

All photos ?Ǭ© Mark Gluhovsky

Links:

• Website Russian Chess Federation
• TWIC’s games in PGN

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