Wang Hao and Andreikin join the Jerusalem Grand Prix
Following the withdrawal Teymour Radjabov and Levon Aronian for medical reasons, the field for the Jerusalem Grand Prix has been completed with the inclusion of Wang Hao (CHN, 2756) and Dmitry Andreikin (RUS, 2724). Wang Hao is the first player from the list of reserve players published in February who was available and ready to take part in the tournament. As for Andreikin, he is the strongest player who was available following the rating list. 1 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA, 2780)2 – Shakriyar Mamedyarov (AZE, 2772)3 – Anish Giri (NED, 2769)4 – Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS, 2767)5 – Wesley So (USA, 2760)6 – Wang Hao (CHN, 2756)7 – Sergey Karjakin (2754)8 – Yu Yangyi (CHN, 2738)9 – Veselin Topalov (BUL, 2737)10 – Radoslav Wojtaszek (POL, 2725)11 – Wei Yi (CHN, 2725)12 – Pentala Harikrishna (IND, 2724)13 – Dmitry Andreikin (RUS, 2724)14 – David Navara (CZH, 2707)15 – Dmitry Jakovenko (RUS, 2698)16 – Boris Gelfand (2684) This is the official website to the FIDE Grand Prix in Jerusalem organized by World Chess: https://worldchess.com/news/guide-to-jerusalem-grand-prix-2019
Call for Bids: FIDE World School Chess Championship 2020
FIDE Presidential Board decided to transfer Peru’s right to organize the World School Chess Championships from 2020 to 2022 due to the unstable situation in the leadership of Peruvian Chess Federation. Peru’s right to organize the 2022 World School Chess Championships comes into force if, no later than March 10, 2020, the Peruvian Federation presents guarantees of state support for the World School Chess Championships 2022 and the Presidential Board recognizes them as satisfactory at 1st quarter 2020 meeting. Presidential Board also decided to re-open bidding procedure for the World School Chess Championships 2020 with the bidding deadline no later than December 13, 2019. Call for Bid World School Championships 2020 reopened again with the deadline 13th December 2019. · A bid for any FIDE Competitions onwards shall include the name of a FIDE licensed International Organizer. · All bids should be submitted by the due date in sealed envelope or scanned documents to the FIDE Secretariat, postal address: Avenue de Rhodanie 54, 1007 Lausanne, Switzerland, Tel: + (41) 21 6010039, email office@fide.com by 13th December 2019, 16:00 local time · Each bid should be accompanied with a bid fee 500 euro · Bid Fees are not refundable. Bid fees should be paid the latest by 20th December 2019 to the FIDE bank account (free of charges) or to be enclosed in the bid envelope. · All bidders must fill the bid form and the new bid from annex completely. · Price of hotels, details about the accommodation and tournament hall must be written in the bid. · FIDE EVE will make first bid inspections and send his report together with a bid evaluation form. There will be a second inspection prior 2 to 4 months to awarded organization. Accommodation costs of the inspections must be paid by organizers. · FIDE Officials – Appeals Committee, Chief Arbiter, Deputy Arbiter(s) – will be decided and appointed by FIDE by taking proposal of organizers. The bid form and new added annex can be downloaded here. BID FORM BID FORM ANNEX
FIDE Ethics Commission announces the sanctions against Igor Rausis
Lausanne, December 5, 2019 The FIDE Ethics Commission (ETH), composed of Yolander Persaud, Ravindra Dongre, Rajesh Hari Joshi, and Francois Strydom as a Chairman, held a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, during November 23-24. During this meeting, among other matters, the ETH Commission studied the allegations of cheating against GM Igor Rausis at the 2019 Strasbourg tournament, and various other tournaments in the period 2015-2019. An oral hearing was held at which were present, apart from the ETH members, the respondent Igor Rausis, Mr. Yuri Garrett of the FIDE Fair Play Commission, and Prof. Kenneth Regan. Mr Rausis confessed to cheating on four different occasions, in three instances by using his mobile phone and in the other instance by pre-arranging the result of a game, and was found guilty as such on the basis of his own version. Taking into account Mr Rausis’ acknowledgment of guilt, his co-operation at the hearing and remorse displayed, as well as his personal circumstances, but keeping in mind the precedent established by the ETH’s decision in case no. 7/2015, the ETH unanimously decided to sanction Mr. Igor Rausis with a worldwide ban of 6 (six) years to take effect from 31 July 2019 and to end on 30 July 2025. During this period Mr. Rausis is prohibited from participating as a player in any FIDE rated over-the-board chess competition (whether classical, rapid, blitz or Fischer-random chess), and from any chess-related activity as an arbiter, organizer or representative of a chess federation. In addition, Mr. Rausis’ grandmaster title is revoked effective from the date of publishing this decision. For the sake of clarity, the sanction does not seek to prevent Mr. Rausis’ participation in FIDE correspondence or online chess games, or to restrain Mr. Rausis from earning income during the period of the ban as a private chess trainer, teacher or coach, provided that he shall not act as captain or assist any player or team during any official FIDE event or Continental championship at the physical site of the tournament. Remote coaching is permitted. The ETH decision does not affect Mr. Rausis’ rating or any other titles he holds, such as FIDE International Master, FIDE Trainer, and National Arbiter. This decision was communicated this morning to Mr. Igor Rausis, the European Chess Union, the Czech and Latvian Chess Federations, the Fair Play Commission and the Investigatory Chamber (per IA Klaus Deventer). Full decision (PDF) [All the other decisions recently taken by the ETH will be published on the Ethics Commission Website in approximately two weeks]
GCT Finals: Ding Liren and Vachier-Lagrave meet in the final
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ding Liren will meet in the finals after defeating Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian respectively. While Ding was dominant in his match, Vachier-Lagrave had to go all the way to tiebreaks to secure his spot. Ding and Vachier-Lagrave will be competing for the $150,000 first-place prize and the title of Grand Chess Tour Champion, while Carlsen and Aronian will battle it out for the third-place qualifying spot to the 2020 GCT in addition to a $60,000 prize. Tomorrow the players will take a break from the action to partake in the corporate day, where they will be paired with entrepreneurs in friendly games to raise money for the UK charity Chess in Schools and Communities. Action will resume on December 6. Ding Liren vs Levon Aronian The Chinese player was completely dominant in his match, advancing to the finals with three blitz games to spare. Aronian was unable to deal with the complications arising from his opponent’s piece sacrifices in both rapid games, collapsing at the crucial moments. The two wins in the rapid gave Ding a 6 point lead, and he only needed 1 draw in the remaining 4 blitz games. He secured his spot in the finals by locking up the position in the first blitz game, forcing a draw and reaching 15 points. Aronian suffered two more losses but did manage to end the day with a win. The Armenian star felt “ashamed” about his play today, whereas Ding felt lucky to win the first game. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs Magnus Carlsen Unlike the smooth sailing by Ding, the match between Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave was a complete roller coaster ride and was decided on the tiebreak. Carlsen later explained to Maurice that he felt sluggish and “not good enough in the critical moments.” After two tame rapid games, the World Champion escaped unscathed in the first blitz game only to go on to lose the next one. In his typical fashion, he bounced back immediately in the very next game with a win in a rook endgame. After a draw in the final blitz game, the match moved on to tiebreaks. The first tiebreak game was a wild affair with the evaluation of the position changing drastically several times. Carlsen had a crushing attack, but let the advantage slip with inaccurate play. After another blunder, he found himself in a difficult position, then ultimately in a lost knight endgame, which Vachier-Lagrave converted masterfully with seconds on his clock. The Frenchman sealed the deal with a draw in the second game. This marks the World Champion’s second tiebreak loss this year, a blemish on his otherwise flawless tiebreak record. Photo: Grand Chess Tour Official site
Competition heats up at the Women Grand Prix in Monaco
All games of the second round of the Women’s FIDE Grand Prix were hard-fought and exciting. Humpy Koneru leads with a perfect score. After a rather uneventful first round on Tuesday, where five our of six games ended in a draw, all the players arrived today to the Yacht Club de Monaco in a very fighting mood. Indeed, four encounters were decided in favor of the white pieces. Thanks to a flawless technical performance, Humpy Koneru clinched her second victory in this event. She chose a rather aggressive line against Mariya Muzychuk’s Grunfeld, to which the Ukrainian did not react accurately. A key concept in this opening consists in not being scared of sacrificing material for the sake of activity. With this in mind, Black should have refrained from the passive move 23…Ra8, going instead for 23…Ne7 24.Qxa6 Nd5. After being given this opportunity the Indian exerted relentless pressure on Black’s position until she reached a favorable endgame before the first time control, which she converted confidently. The other Indian representative Harika Dronavalli was equally successful, as she outplayed Elisabeth Paehtz in the Slav Defense. The German chose a timid 5…Nbd7 and ended up in the kind of passive position on the queenside which Black usually tries to avoid in this variation. Paehtz tried to get counter-play on the other side with 18…g5, but Dronavalli reacted perfectly by allowing the exchange of her Bishop on g3. She even got attacking chances against the open black king, but when given a chance, she opted for converting her positional advantage in an endgame. The four Russian players were pitted against each other on this second day. Alexandra Kosteniuk achieved what White dreams of in this line of the Caro-Kann: a long-lasting edge thanks to the pair of Bishops. On move 20, her opponent Aleksandra Goryachkina strangely decided to bring her strong Nb4 all the way back to e8, instead of developing her rook to d8. Kosteniuk later managed to break through with the thematic 30.d5. She won a pawn and reached a highly favorable endgame. However, Kosteniuk criticized her own technique in the post-game interview: she indeed allowed her opponent to escape towards the end. But the future challenger for the World Championship missed the saving move 61…Kg6 and lost. The other Russian duel was very lively. Valentina Gunina took a lot of time in her Berlin opening and decided to offer a pawn with 15…Be6. Kateryna Lagno accepted the gift and got a clearly better position plus a 1-hour advantage on the clock. Down to her last minutes around move 20, Gunina started playing as actively as possible and managed to confuse her opponent. Lagno missed several ways to consolidate her advantage and eventually had to settle for a drawish endgame despite an extra pawn. But Gunina, who is suffering from a cold, did not have the energy to hold it. Her final mistake came when she decided to reject the prospect of defending the famous endgame a rook and bishop against a rook. Both draws of this round were very interesting games as well. Nana Dzagnidze could have obtained an opening advantage with 12.Bd6 but took the poisoned pawn on c6 instead. She admitted that she underestimated Anna Muzychuk’s reply 13…Qc8, after which she already had to be very careful. After 19…Qc4, it became clear that Black would not let her opponent castle. Being low on time, the Ukrainian erred with 21…Rc8 though. She refrained from the correct 21…Rad8 because of 22.Rd4, but the simple exchange on d4 would have given her a winning position. 23.cxd4 is met with Rc8, while after 23.exd4 Qd3 Black is crushing too. In the game, Dzagnidze eventually managed to simplify and achieve a draw. Pia Cramling played almost a perfect game against Zhao Xue’s English Opening. As she explained afterward, she felt that Black had to play actively in order to avoid getting slightly worse in the long run. Her moves 15…b5 and 16…d5 were brilliant and gave her the initiative. The Swedish legend is known to be a very restrained and modest person. She probably did not fully believe that she had so skilfully outplayed her opponent and repeated moves to seal a draw. She actually missed two consecutive opportunities to win, namely 25…Nb4 and 26…Nc4. The leader of the Grand Prix race Koneru is the only player with two out of two in Monaco. She is followed by her compatriot Dronavalli and two Russians Kosteniuk and Lagno who are a half-point behind. Results of Round 2: Nana Dzagnidze (Geo) – Anna Muzychuk (Ukr): ½-½Humpy Koneru (Ind) – Mariya Muzychuk (Ukr): 1-0Kateryna Lagno (Rus) – Valentina Gunina (Rus): 1-0Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus) – Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus): 1-0Zhao Xue (China) – Pia Cramling (Swe): ½-½Dronavalli Harika (Ind) – Elisabeth Paehtz (Ger): 1-0 Standings after round 2 :1. Humpy Koneru – 2 points2-4. Harika Dronavalli , Alexandra Kosteniuk, Kateryna Lagno – 1½5-8. Nana Dzagnidze, Anna Muzychuk, Zhao Xue, Pia Cramling – 19-11. Aleksandra Goryachkina, Elisabeth Paehtz, Mariya Muzychuk – ½12. Valentina Gunina – 0 Round 3, 5 December at 3 pm:Elisabeth Paehtz (Ger) – Nana Dzagnidze (Geo)Pia Cramling (Swe) – Dronavalli Harika (Ind)Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus) – Zhao Xue (China)Valentina Gunina (Rus) – Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus)Mariya Muzychuk (Ukr) – Kateryna Lagno (Rus)Anna Muzychuk (Ukr) – Humpy Koneru (Ind) Official website with live games and commentary by WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili, GM Josif Dorfman and GM Bartlomiej Heberla: https://wgp2019.fide.com. Pictures are available on this Dropbox folder Text: Yannick PelletierPictures: Karol Bartnik