World Team 04: China shocks Armenia

 
The World Chess Team Championship is currently being held in Antalya, Turkey. The tournament runs from November 26th to December 5th. The tournament is a round robin tournament between the best countries in the world who are sending their top participants. The event will have zero tolerance rules, no draw offers for the first 30 moves and will be played under the standard team tournament system with two points given to a match winner, one for a draw and zero the the loser of a match. Tiebreaks will be decided by board points. The time control is the FIDE 90 minutes for 40 moves and an additional 30 minutes at move 40 with thirty second increment throughout the game.

Round 4

China scored an incredibly important win today. Ukraine is quite happy they won
too, as Armenia was their closest competitor.

The big news of the day is that the young team of China was able to beat Armenia in a great match. Sargissian was unable to do much with his slight advantage against Yu Yangyi and the game ended in a perpetual check in a long queen endgame. Ding Liren was able to obtain a huge advantage with black against Movsesian with a brutal and powerful kingside attack in a King's Indian, fueled by a strong pawn sacrifice and domination of the dark squares.

Li Chao's tiger balm (which he is applying) didn't help him today, but his team won regardless

Meanwhile on board one Aronian struck back. He was somehow able to hold on to a weak pawn and eventually he traded it off for a healthy one and won a nice technical masterpiece. It all came down to Bu Xiangzhi vs. Akopian on board four. The Chinese player with White was up an exchange for what seemed to be an eternity, but he was pestered by checks against his weak king. He was able to consolidate and the trade of queens sealed Armenia's fate.

Big Vlad was down a pawn most of the game but held a draw against Mamedov

In a big match Russia won against Azerbaijan. Karjakin outplayed Safarli in a very complex Paulsen English Attack position and the remaining three draws gave Russia the typical score that they win by: 2.5-1.5.

Karjakin is still a huge factor in team tournaments

Labib had no chance against Akobian today and lost in less than 30 moves

The Egypta-USA match went very much as expected. USA had no problems winning on their top boards even without Nakamura and Robson held Amin Bassem to a draw with black.

Wesley So, from the Philippines, is America's coach

Ukraine was able to retain their lead with important wins by Kryvoruchko and Ivanchuk. The first simply steam rolled over Baramidze after the German played made some very strange decisions in a Breyer Spanish. Khenkin seemed to eager to draw Ivanchuk as he played an exchange slav but the Ukrainian wasn't having any of it, instead of a simple draw he grinded out a long endgame and eventually won. Ukraine has won all of its matches and sits very comfortably on first place.
The Netherlands squashed Turkey with a brutal 3.5-0.5 score. Simply convincing.

Ipatov has had a series of amazing results but Giri put him in his place today

Results

4.1	Egypt		½ - 3½	United States of America
1	Ezat Mohamed	2454	0 : 1	Kamsky Gata	2721
2	Abdel Razik Khaled	2450	0 : 1	Onischuk Alexander	2672
3	Amin Bassem	2652	½ : ½	Robson Ray	2613
4	Labib Ibrahim Hasan	2411	0 : 1	Akobian Varuzhan	2625
4.2	China		2½ - 1½	Armenia
1	Li Chao B	2679	0 : 1	Aronian Levon	2801
2	Ding Liren	2711	1 : 0	Movsesian Sergei	2700
3	Bu Xiangzhi	2683	1 : 0	Akopian Vladimir	2681
4	Yu Yangyi	2668	½ : ½	Sargissian Gabriel	2676
4.3	Azerbaijan		1½ - 2½	Russia
1	Mamedov Rauf	2647	½ : ½	Kramnik Vladimir	2793
2	Safarli Eltaj	2653	0 : 1	Karjakin Sergey	2756
3	Mamedov Nidjat	2616	½ : ½	Grischuk Alexander	2785
4	Guseinov Gadir	2607	½ : ½	Vitiugov Nikita	2741
4.4	Germany		1 - 3	Ukraine
1	Khenkin Igor	2612	0 : 1	Ivanchuk Vassily	2731
2	Meier Georg	2623	½ : ½	Korobov Anton	2713
3	Fridman Daniel	2600	½ : ½	Moiseenko Alexander	2709
4	Baramidze David	2614	0 : 1	Kryvoruchko Yuriy	2701
4.5	Turkey		½ - 3½	Netherlands
1	Ipatov Alexander	2630	0 : 1	Giri Anish	2732
2	Solak Dragan	2618	0 : 1	Van Wely Loek	2678
3	Yilmaz Mustafa	2577	0 : 1	Tiviakov Sergei	2663
4	Can Emre	2519	½ : ½	L'ami Erwin	2648

Standings

Rank	Team	Match pts	Board Pts.
1	Ukraine	8	10½
2	Armenia	5	9
3	Russia	5	8
4	United States of America	4	9½
5	Azerbaijan	4	8½
6	Netherlands	4	8½
7	China	4	8
8	Germany	4	8
9	Turkey	2	5½
10	Egypt	0	4½

Teams receive two points for a match win, one for a draw and zero for a loss

Download PGN

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