Chess Club "64" from Moscow Saturday won the Russian Team Championship. The event was more or less decided on Friday when they held their main rival St Petersburg to a 3-3 tie. As expected, an easy win against Economist II in the last round secured the gold medals.

The 17th Russian Team Championship took place from April 1st to 10th in hotel complex "Dagomys", close to Sochim Russia. The rate of play was 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 10 minutes to end the game with 30 seconds increment for each move.

The "Premier League" was a single round-robin consisting of ten teams, with no less than three of the nine teams have an average rating of 2700 or higher. The lineups:

1. Economist-SGSEU - 1 (2704) - Wang Yue, Eljanov, Tomashevsky, Alekseev, Ni Hua, Moiseenko, Roiz, Andreikin
2. SPb Chess Fed (2700) - Ivanchuk, Svidler, Vitiugov, Movsesian, Zvjaginsev, Efimenko, Sakaev, Yemelin
3. ShSM-64 (2700) - Gelfand, Karjakin, Wang Hao, Caruana, Grachev, Riazantsev, Najer, Savchenko
4. Yugra (2689) - Grischuk, Jakovenko, Malakhov, Rublevsky, Landa, Sjugirov, Pridorozhni, Kabanov
5. Tomsk-400 (2687) - Ponomariov, Motylev, Bologan, Kurnosov, Inarkiev, Khismatullin, Timofeev, Amonatov
6. Ural (2618) - Nepomniachtchi, Belov, Kobalia, Lysyj, Ponkratov, Deviatkin, Shariyazdanov, Rashkovsky
7. M.Chigorin Chess Club (2584) - Khairullin, Matlakov, Romanov, Popov, Ionov, Shimanov, Anisimov, Levin
8. Etude-Contact (2555) - Khenkin, Rakhmanov, Chadaev, Papin, Krylov, Gabrielian, Chernobay, Orlinkov
9. Economist-SGSEU - 2 (2548) - Kovchan, Evdokimov, Novikov, Dyachkov, Iljushin, Lushenkov, Shukh, Sharafiev
10. BelGU (2493) - Ivanov, Potkin, Gasanov, Panarin, Bryzgalin, Uzhva, Fomichenko, Khoroshilov

Rounds 8-9

A day before El Clásico the chess version of the Russian clasico was held in Dagomys, where the teams of Moscow and St Petersburg finally met. But where in football on Saturday night the Bernabeu stadium saw a great match, in which the coastal town defeated the capital 2-0 (with yet again an important role for Lionel Messi), in Dagomys the encounter was disappointing, with short draws on all six boards: Gelfand-Ivanchuk, Karjakin-Svidler, Wang Hao-Vitiugov, Caruana-Movsesian, Grachev-Zvjaginsev and Savchenko-Efimenko. Thus, with a 3-3 match score the capital held on to their 2-point lead in the standings.

On the same day there was a small incident in the match Economist 1 vs Chigorin Chess Club. Economist's board 2 Pavel Eljanov had already left Dagomys, on his way to the German Bundesliga, and apparently because of some sloppy paper work the team couldn't play with their reserve player. Maxim Matlakov scored a full point for Chigorin without playing, but Economist won the match 3.5-2.5 anyway.

On Saturday "64" crushed Economist 2 with a 1-5 score to claim the gold medals. St Petersburg took silver after a narrow 3.5-2.5 victory over Economist 1.

Best indivdual perfomances

Karjakin (ShSM-64, board 2) - 5½/7
Riazantsev (ShSM-64, boardd 6) - 6/7
Khenkin (Etude-Contact, board 1) - 4/6
Eljanov (Economist-1, board 1) - 5/7
Efimenko (SPb Fed, board 6) - 6/8
Motylev (Tomsk-400, board 2) - 5½/8
Najer (ShSM-64, reserve 1) - 5½/7

Thanks to Chess Today for some of the info.

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Photos © Eldar Mukhatemov, more here

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