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.

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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.

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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:

Ruan Lufei - Tatiana Kosintseva from the second round: a draw in a Richter Rauzer

Nadezhda Kosintseva - Zhao Xue: a solid White victory in an anti-Marshall

Inarkiev - Wang Hao: a Black win in a Queen's Indian

Shen Yang - Pogonina: a Volga/Benk?ɬ? gambit that didn't work out

Evgeny Alekseev: a 50% score after the first 5

Ekaterina Korbut (2459), scoring 3 out of 5

Natalija Pogonina (2469): also on 3 out of 5

All photos ?Ǭ© Mark Gluhovsky

Links:

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