All excitement at the Russian club team chess championships

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

We're trying to bring you all the news from the Russian Club Team Chess Championship which is fielding some of the strongest and creative chess players of the world. You can check the women's team compositions at this link and follow Chess Queen Alexandra playing board one for Moscow. The women's team section started on Saturday. We will update the results shortly.



Meanwhile, in the men's section Tomsk-400 (led by Ponomariov and Motylev) and SHSM-64 (with Gelfand, Wang Hao, Caruana, Giri, and Potkin) are sharing the lead after four rounds. Other top names active in Olginka, Russia are Ivanchuk and Svidler, playing for St. Petersburg, and Nepomniachtchi and Eljanov (Economist).

The 18th Russian Team Championship is taking place in Olginka (Krasnodar Territory), Russia. The organizers had to leave the traditional hotel complex 'Dagomys', close to Sochi, Russia because this is under reconstruction. Each team consists of 6 players and 2 reserves. The rate of play is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and then 30 minutes to end the game with 30 seconds increment from move one. Each day the rounds start at 14.30 local time (12.30 CET). You can track the performance of the teams in the men's section here.

The teams Tomsk-400 and SHSM-64 both started with four victories. For Tomsk-400, Ponomariov, Motylev, Khismatullin and Kurnosov all scored 3/4 so far, while Bologan is on +1. SHSM-64′s Evgeny Najer is the top scorer in the whole competition so far, with 4/4. His team member Caruana is on 3/4 and Potkin, Giri and Grachev scored 2.5 points. Sixteen-year-old Anish Giri is making his début in the Russian Team Championship and had a solid start. He drew his three black games, and then won with the white pieces in round 4.

You can access the official website here.

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