İstanbul Beşiktaş Jimnastik Club won the Turkish Team Championship on Sunday in Konya with 12 victories and 1 tied match with İstanbul Teknik Univeristy Sport Club, who finished second. The Turkish league was quite strong this year with players like Adams, Kasimdzhanov, Mamedyarov and Polgar participating.

İstanbul Beşiktaş Jimnastik Club celebrate | Photos by Anstasia Karlovich

The Turkish Isbank Chess League took place from July 10th till July 22nd, 2012 at the Konya Rixos Hotel in Konya, Turkey. Almost 300 players from 14 clubs participated in the event.

The Turkish Team Championship (1st Chess League) was inaugurated in 1995. In 2004, it changed its name to Super League, but after the Turkish Isbank started sponsoring in 2006, the name was changed once more to the Turkish Isbank Chess League.

In Turkey each team consists of 10 boards: the first 6 boards of every team are the titled players, followed by a female junior (U-20), a junior player (U-20), U15 girl, and a U15 general board. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes till the end of the game with a 30-second increment.

37 grandmasters and 87 titled players in total were present in Konya, including top players such as Michael Adams (ENG, 2728), Rustam Kasimdzhanov (UZB, 2690), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE, 2726), Vladimir Malakhov (RUS, 2715),  Viktor Bologan (MLD, 2716), Judit Polgar (HUN, 2709), Mikheil Mchedlishvili (GEO, 2656) and Ilya Nyzhnyk (UKR, 2610). You can find the teams and players on this page.

İstanbul Beşiktaş Jimnastik Club won the league with 12 victories and 1 tied match with İstanbul Teknik Univeristy Sport Club. This club lost in the last round but it didn’t affect its tournament situation as they guaranteed the second place one round before. Ankara Gazi Üniversitesi Sport Club  defeated Manisa T.S Alyans Sport Club to get bronze medal in the championship.

Turkish league 2012 | Final standings

Let's look at a few games. You can download the full PGN here (thanks to TWIC).

In the first, a queen sacrifice doesn't lead to a mate, for a change, but to a perpetual:

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Pavel Tregubov, board 2 for Denizli Er Bakır Spor ve Kültür Kulübü, playing between Peter Heine Nielsen and Viktorija Cmilyte

We'll also include the following game, for the simple reason that a Sicilian Dragon (more or less the main line) at this level is always interesting!

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Here's a nice game by Ernesto Inarkiev:

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Ernesto Inarkiev (l.) and Viktor Bologan, top boards for İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Spor Kulübü

Viorel Iordachescu (2636), who featured in the Dragon game above, was in good form and scored 9/13 (a 2723 TPR). In the final round he beat Mickey Adams with Black.

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15-year-old GM Ilya Nyzhnyk (2599) scored 10/13 againt lower rated opponents (his TPR was 2701). One of his victims was Judit Polgar (2709), who only scored 3.5/8 (a 2549 performance).

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İstanbul İSEK Aquamatch Spor Kulübü with Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Mickey Adams and Judit Polgar at top boards

Thanks to Anstasia Karlovich who sent us press releases and photos