Chinese women retain title on home ground at World Team Championship
14 September 2009, 14.46 CET | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
China won the gold medal at the Women’s World Team Championship on Saturday in Ningbo, China. The team (Hou Yifan, Zhao Xue, Shen Yang, Ju Wenjun and Huang Qian) finished on 12 match points, just like Russia (silver) and Ukraine (bronze), who collected less board points.
Photo: Ye Rongguang
The Women’s World Team Championship took place September 1st-12th in Yinzhou, Ningbo, China. It was a round-robin of ten teams competing, each with five players, and the official FIDE time control was applied: 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes and 30 seconds increment.
The championship takes place every other year; the first edition was held in Russia in 2007, when China won. On Saturday they retained their title with four draws against Vietnam in the last round. This allowed Ukraine and Russia, who defeated Armenia and China’s second team respectively, to reach the same number of match points (12) but China eventually took gold by half a board point.
Despite the fact that all games in the last round match between China and Vietnam seemed hard fought, it does look a bit like this match was fixed as a draw in advance, as Mark Crowther points out, since Vietnam had a big advantage on board one and a completely winning position on board four when the draws were agreed. You can decide for yourself below in the game viewer.
The best performing players were not on the winning team; IM Nadezhda Kosintseva (Russia) and Lilit Mkrtchian (Armenia) both scored 6.5/9 which was good for a rating performance just over 2600 in both cases. Hou Yifan, who stepped in immediately after the NH Chess Tournament, played rounds 2-6 and 8-9 and again scored somewhat disappointingly (4/7; 2498 performance).
All games >2460 & China-Vietnam r9
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“it does look a bit like this match was fixed as a draw in advance”
A bit? If those really are the actual moves played this is the most obvious example in the history of chess of someone winning a World Championship through cheating.
I don’t think it was a cheating case. It was a wonderful example to take advantage of the rule.
Before Vietnam faced Chinese team, the Vietnam had 7 loses and 1 draw. When Chinese team suggested a draw, they were very happy. Because they forced Chinese team to ask for a draw.
After Chinese and Vietnam teams got draw, Russian and Ukrain still had chance to be the champion.
“I don’t think it was a cheating case. It was a wonderful example to take advantage of the rule”
The rule is that it isn’t OK to fix matches, so they didn’t take advantage of any rules, they just broke them. Vietnam drew USA so if they had actually tried to win they could have done that. It would have been a sensation but at least it would have been part of a competition and not a negotiation off the board.
“After Chinese and Vietnam teams got draw, Russian and Ukrain still had chance to be the champion”
The four China-Vietnam games were all drawn at the same time, just when it was clear that no one could beat China if the match was drawn. Weird that they at least didn’t do it in a better looking way, it just looks stupid when someone agrees to draw in a position where the opponent should hnve resigned long ago.
@gg: I generally agree with you, but …
“The rule is that it isn’t OK to fix matches …”
Are you referring to a widely accepted, written rule? I don’t think this is the case, “fixed matches” occur every now and then, it may be immoral but to the best of my knowledge it’s not illegal.
And, in my opinion, it would only be cheating if there was bribery (or some sort of blackmailing?) involved. Evidence for such a thing is lacking, the Vietnamese women (or the team captain acting on their behalf) were apparently free to accept or decline the 2-2 draw offer. I am also not aware of any rule saying that you are not allowed to accept a draw in a winning position.
Altogether, I am also deeply puzzled about “results that don’t match the position on the board”, but would refrain from calling it cheating.
“Are you referring to a widely accepted, written rule? I don’t think this is the case”
There should exist some kind of rule against fixing games and matches, otherwise something is wrong
They have all kinds of dress code rules and other pointless things, and a Russian girl was forfeited for only being close to the board but not seated when the games started. Maybe you are right that it isn’t against the rules, sadly I don’t know the rules apart from how the horse moves and all that 
Found the rules!
6.3.6.6. “Prior agreement between players or captains as to the result of individual games or of a match will be penalized with the utmost severity. If any such agreement is proved to have taken place, the points apportioned by it will be forfeited, and the matter will be referred to the appeals committee for the fixing of the penalty”
http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=103&view=article
China Wins Gold Medal At Women’s World Team Championships…
Thanks to Chessvibes for providing the names of the top participants.
The Chinese Team: Hou Yifan, Zhao Xue, Shen Yang, Ju Wenjun, and Huang Qian
I am a little surprised by the less-than-expected performance of the American team: IM Irina Krusk, …
Even so,
“If any such agreement is proved to have taken place…”
is not fullfiled
Other thing is that the problem is not a problem unless some legal measures were taken (formal protests) in legal time. If no one protested, including the potential victims, it not even gets to be a problem.
@gg “Vietnam drew USA so if they had actually tried to win they could have done that.”
If chess is that simple, it is not necessary to play, just compare
“The four China-Vietnam games were all drawn at the same time, just when it was clear that no one could beat China if the match was drawn.”
After China-Vietnam got draw, Russian had 2 games unfinished, if they won all, they had to compare the TB3, even TB4.
Ukrain had 3 games were on the way, if they won all the 3 games, they would be champion(actually they won 2)
@Thomas” it would only be cheating if there was bribery (or some sort of blackmailing?) involed”
I agree to this point.
@Thomas “results that don’t match the position on the board”
The games had not finished, you could tell the results based on the positions. Do you remeber the game between Wang Yue and Dominguez. Wang had a simple Pawn End game. But the result was a draw
“If any such agreement is proved to have taken place …”
which is indeed hard to prove, unless the team captains enter negotiations in the hotel bar and an arbiter happens to be in hearing distance?
But after looking at the entire games (before I just looked at the final positions) I rather think about a different scenario: I guess initially China thought they could win the match easily (after all, they were at least 200 points higher-rated on all four boards). Only when things went seriously wrong, the team captain pulled the emergency brake and offered a team draw.
While the games on boards 2 and 3 could have been “pro forma” games where both players knew the result beforehand, action and excitement in the two other games appears inconsistent with a prearranged draw!?
If this is what happened, China can hardly be blamed (you can always try, and they had nothing to lose at this stage), but Russia and Ukraine may have the right to get mad at the Vietnamese team (captain) … .
@leigh: “results that don’t match the position on the board”
I put this deliberately in quotation marks, what I meant is: normally there is no reason to offer or accept a draw in such a position – unless the roles had been reversed and Vietnam merely needed a match draw for tournament victory.
it seems to me that boards 1-3 where heading for a draw, but board 4 was dead lost for China.
I disagree that it is allowed or ok to accept a draw in a simple totally winning position where the opponent has no counterplay what so ever. After the sooner or later forced exchange of rooks there are simply 3 pawns more for white, even 3 files between two of them so in fact one of the extra pawns in neglitable.
It seems to me that it is extremely hard to see where China should have been able to make up for the loss on board 4 and this match should have gone 2,5-1,5 for the Vietnamese.
“If chess is that simple, it is not necessary to play, just compare”
It is you who mean that Vietnam did the right thing in not trying to win against China, it is I who say that it is necessary to play instead of comparing. Also, Ukraine needed 1 point more to finish even with China, not 0.5 more to pass them. As with Russia their chances to win the gold were gone when the draws were agreed (maybe one dead draw between Russia and China B was not formally agreed yet, but it was an extremely dead endgame).
“While the games on boards 2 and 3 could have been “pro forma” games where both players knew the result beforehand, action and excitement in the two other games appears inconsistent with a prearranged draw!? If this is what happened, China can hardly be blamed”
That is a generous interpretation, assuming that some of the players knew the result beforehand (against the rules), while the two where Vietnam were clearly winning and much better were “fair”. Why Vietnam would agree to draw instead of going for a famous win in that situation is hard to understand unless the whole match was prearranged, and in both cases China could and should be blamed together with Vietnam for not playing a fair match.
But now I’m tired of this subject and also of team chess
PS. Reading through Thomas’ latest post I see that I probably misunderstood it, he means that the match wasn’t preagreed since games 1 and 4 looked combattive until they were drawn (not that only board 2 and 3 were preagreed). Still looks weird to me why Vietnam would accept to draw a match they were winning unless it was agreed beforehand.
Now that I’m at it with final posts, I’ll make the third final really final by just saying that I disagree with the opinion of the posters that meant that it only is cheating if money is involved. If Team A gives Team B a certain result because they want to see Team B winning for political reasons, it isn’t more right or less cheating than if they do it for payment, as I see it. But maybe I am in the minority in this, and now I really am done with this and out of here
Well, the fact that they had 200-300 ELO less at each board could be the reason you know… I have seen manye times people with less rating accepting drawes in better positions. And judging by their rating difference to me it seems possible that: board 1 would end as draw, board2,3 they were about equal, so I believe that at least one of the two would be a win for China. Board 4 was dead lost indeed so probably (but not 100%) Vietnam would win. Note that the Vietnamese player had only 2100 rating (the chinese 2400), so even this was not sure (opposite color bishops. Honestly, I have seen worse things happening with this kind of rating difference). Add, to this possible time-pressure in some of these boards, and you can see that Vietnam was not at all certain to not lose this match. Of course they should have tried, but it is far from an obviously pre-aranged mathc
@gg 10:07am: Yes that’s what I meant. Four quiet games (some maneouvring, some piece exchanges, handshake) or four seemingly sharp games (Sicilians ending in perpetual check?), or a mix of both might be stronger evidence for a prearranged match draw. Note that it still wouldn’t be a (definite) proof, because both types of games are common at GM level.
Regarding your last comment: “Teams not really wanting to hurt each other”, this can happen for political or other reasons (e.g. personal friendships between the players). And in the given case, Vietnam would obviously be very happy with a 2-2 BEFORE the match – while China wasn’t even sure that such a result would clinch tournament victory.
I see two solutions:
1) changing the tournament schedule so that the strongest (highest-rated) teams play each other in the final round. At least we didn’t have China 1 – China 2 in the last round, this would lead to eyebrows raised under most circumstances. Imagine China 1 had already sealed tournament victory, could afford losing to the other team and would indeed lose against all ELO odds … .
2) forgetting about tiebreaks, and decide the title in (rapid) playoffs. Of course even then China would have needed help or cooperation from Vietnam to reach the tiebreak in the first place.
fwiw, here’s what I wrote at Mig’s blog, where it occasioned no comment!
Jonathan Berry | September 12, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply
R+B vs. R was among the crucial games at the Women’s Team Championship yesterday as well (it was Sept 11th, but it seems like two days ago because it was held in China). In the match Ukraine vs. Armenia, Aginian couldn’t hold it against Zdebskaja. Combined with a heartbreaking loss by 15 (?) year old Galojan who seemed to be on the way to a Petrosian-like victory over Gaponenko (all credit to Gaponenko, mind you, for creating chances and taking advantage of them), and Ukraine turned the tables and won the bronze, instead of their opponents. The final crosstable was up at Swiss Manager (chess-results.com) within seconds of Aginian’s resignation …
The final results had China, Russia and Ukraine all tied with 12 match points out of 18, a very close event; just 1/2 a game point separated each of the three medal winners … but the gamescores of the last two rounds have still not appeared at TWIC. Noteworthy in that regard was the final-round match China (eventual gold medal winners) versus Vietnam (last place). Soon after Russia agreed to a draw in one game of its match with China Two, which guaranteed China (One) at least a tie for first (and I assume a win on 2nd tiebreak, but that’s just a guess), all four games of the China – Vietnam match were agreed drawn. You may not like these Captains’ draws, but that’s long been a fact of team chess, certainly the Chess Olympics. However, more interesting was the positions on the four boards. On boards 2 and 3, it looked to me like China was holding a small advantage, but definitely drawable with steady play by the opponents. By contrast, on board 4, Vietnam was several pawns up, and on board 1, Vietnam had Knight and a very solid two pawns against Hou Yifan’s Rook. A quick appraisal of the final positions by an old engine confirms that observation: -1.38, -0.19, 0.47, 3.34: big advantages to V in two games; mild advantages to C in the other two.
Beyond a captain-engineered match draw, we don’t know what happened, but the positions and timing are provocative.
In the FIDE Laws of Chess it used to be that it was forbidden to agree on the result of a game before it started, but concepts of sportsmanship have progressed (Grin) and now it is more important to shake hands before the game, a ritual of which there can be no doubt.
If we’re speculating about how the moves of the games might mesh with a pre-arranged match, how about this: the captains arrange that after necessary results in the Ukraine and Russia matches come to pass, the two teams will agree to four draws, thus guaranteeing China the gold and Vietnam a better-than-expected result in this one match. The Chinese coach tells this to the players. So in effect they’re waiting, not really playing chess. However, the other coach does NOT tell the Vietnam players. They’re in it from the beginning.
That’s all. Just speculation, of course.
Someone:
The positions on boards 1-3 where simple drawish positions with very little material left. Certainly not a position that one would choose in a must win situation. I dont see how one of the games on board 2 and 3 could end in anything else than a draw.
The position on board 4 was so simple that a 2100 ELO player would win it for sure. Whole three pawns, with the bishop pinned so an exchange of rooks is forced. The resulting endgame with not only three more pawns for white, but also three files between two of the pawns which means that even if there was no material other than these two pawn white would be easily winning. The extra pawn and the added pawn for each side makes the white position only more winning.