Shant Sargsyan wins Tashkent Open, Agzamov Memorial
GM Shant Sargsyan (Armenia) came as the winner of the 14th Tashkent Open, Agzamov Memorial. The event took place from 15th August to 23rd August 2021 in the capital of Uzbekistan and brought together 151 chess players from 12 countries, including 20 grandmasters and 11 international masters. The 9-round competition, officiated by the Chief Arbiter Husan Turdialiev, was played over the board in two groups – group A rated 1800 and above and group B for the participants with a rating below 1800. The total prize fund of the event reached $25,000. The tournament was organized by Uzbekistan Chess Federation in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Sport of the Republic of Uzbekistan and supported by the FIDE Aid Package to open tournaments. Shant Sargsyan (pictured above) completed the competition undefeated and finished clear first, scoring 7 of 9 points. His main competitor, a local favourite Nodirbek Yakkuboev was coming into the final round sharing the top position with the eventual champion but fell to Misratdin Iskandarov and had to settle for fifth place. Six players tied finished a half-point behind the winner with another local hero Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) and Muhammad Khusenkhojaev (Tajikistan) taking second and third prizes respectively thanks to better tiebreaks (performance). Final standings: 1 GM Sargsyan, Shant ARM 2626 7 2 GM Abdusattorov, Nodirbek UZB 2634 6½ 3 IM Khusenkhojaev, Muhammad TJK 2383 6½ 4 GM Harutyunyan, Tigran K. ARM 2564 6½ 5 GM Yakubboev, Nodirbek UZB 2598 6½ 6 GM Vakhidov, Jakhongir UZB 2534 6½ 7 GM Iskandarov, Misratdin AZE 2552 6½ 8 GM Mchedlishvili, Mikheil GEO 2570 6 9 GM Petrosyan, Manuel ARM 2620 6 10 GM Stupak, Kirill BLR 2491 6 Akbarali Abdukhakimov (Uzbekistan) won the tournament in category B. During a closing ceremony, the prize winners were awarded by Mr. Aziz Abdukhakimov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, Chairman of Uzbekistan Chess Federation, and Mr. Sheikh Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Mualla, President of Arab Chess Federation, President of the Sharjah Cultural Chess Club.
Online Olympiad Day 3 concluded: 16 teams advance
Sunday, August 22nd, 2021 – The round began today with a fun anecdote in a conversation between Malta’s team captain and principal arbiter Alex Holowczak. “If you see our #1 player floating around, it’s not a virtual zoom background – he IS on a boat.” An excellent example of the fun possibilities of online chess! In the later rounds of the online Olympiad, we will often see many of the stronger teams compete together from the same venue, but in the early stages, it’s quite a challenge to coordinate a full roster, especially in August! After today’s four final rounds, and pending the fair play panel report, the 16 qualifying teams that will advance to Division 3 are: Hong Kong, Nepal, Lebanon (all from Pool A), Kenya, Namibia, Palestine (Pool B), Angola, Cyprus, Ethiopia (Pool C), Suriname, Aruba, Ghana (Pool D), Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Haiti (Pool E) and Malawi (as best 4th, from Pool B). Division 3 will run from Friday 27th to Sunday 29th. and will see these 16 qualifiers joined by 34 new seeded teams They will play in 5 pools of 10 teams each. Nothing substantial changed in the last four rounds in Pool A and yesterday’s three top contenders advanced to Division 3. Congratulations to the winning team Hong Kong, scoring 20 points out of 22. Undefeated, they had nine wins and two draws, finishing full two points ahead of second-place Nepal (18/22) and three points ahead of Lebanon (17/22), that took the third qualifying spot. The top scorers for the Hong Kong team were boards 3, 4 and 6. Feng Eunice (11/11!!), Huang Yuen Tung (10.5/11) and WCM Li Joy Ching (10/11) all performed way above their expectations, especially 12-year-old Feng Eunice, rated FIDE 1528 standard. Fourth place Fiji (15/22) did make a comeback, including two 6-0 wins in rounds 9 and 10, but a 2-4 loss to Lebanon shattered any hopes of taking one of the three qualifying spots. Although a loss against Namibia in the last round stopped them from scoring 100%, Pool B winner Kenya had a great run these last three days. They have dominated one of the most competed groups of the five pools, scoring 20/22, and qualifying with ease to the next stage. The African team, captained by Ben Mangana, relied abundantly on the reserve boards and distributed the efforts throughout all of the players: in fact, Kenya’s top team scorer can be found on board 12 (!) where Gosrani Naiya made an outstanding unbeaten 7/8. One of the few games that Kenya lost was played in round 8. In the next diagram, Mohamud Hussein Ali, playing for Somalia, already has his eyes set on Black’s weakened king, in the hands of Kenya’s Irungu Brian Mwangi. The game continued 28.Rf4! Nf8 29.Rh4+ Nh7 and now 30.Nf6! with the decisive threat 31.Rxh7 mate. The final tactic is quite nice, as the knight can’t be captured because of 31.Rxh7 mate anyway! As we mentioned yesterday, second-place finishers – and surprise contenders – Namibia (18/22), did have an outside chance of qualifying by winning their four matches combined with a setback by Malawi and/or Palestine. Their epic last round win against Kenya blended beautifully with Malawi’s unfortunate 2.5-3.5 loss to Lesotho, enabling Palestine (17/22) to clinch third place by just one point. However, it does seem that Malawi might qualify as best 4th (pending fair play results). The team of Angola run through Pool C with remarkable ease. Scoring 22/22, including several 6-0, they might be the best team in the Division. Their medium rating is definitely one of the highest (1956) and the team captained by Antonio Henriques Assis has performed outstandingly along all the boards, both main and reserve. The top scorer has been FM Junior Domingos with 7/7, but three other players have also reached the 7-point mark, albeit with some default wins. Despite losing to Sudan and Angola, Cyprus (18/22) maintained second place in good measure thanks to their close 3.5-2.5 win over Jersey. Unfortunately, this loss allowed Ethiopia to overtake Jersey on the finish line and clinch third place with 16/22. Suriname have also been a powerhouse in this Division. They have steamrolled through Pool D, winning all the matches by a minimum 4.5 score (with several 6-0), and taking down the group with a definitive 22/22 top score. All the team players have contributed to some degree in this success, with a special mention to WCM Kaslan Alexandra, who scored an outstanding 8.5/9 result on board four. Second place finishers were Aruba, with 20/22. The Caribbean island team also played fantastically, only losing to Suriname but crushing the rest of the competition and qualifying with ease. The third qualification spot goes to Ghana, who preserved their advantage over the rest of the teams by scoring 7.5/8 in the last four rounds. Due to connectivity problems in some of the African countries, this group has been a huge challenge for all contenders, and the fact that all teams were eventually able to participate must be applauded. Pool E finished in the same fashion as we left the standings yesterday. Puerto Rico continued dominating today and won the group with an undisputed 100% score, /22 crushing the opposition mercilessly. One of Puerto Rico’s top scorers was Coralys M. Alvarado. Playing on board six, Alvarado scored 9/10, a massive result for the team. The following diagram is from her game against Antigua and Barbuda’s Danae Joseph. Playing White, she thematically pushed her kingside pawns forward to breach her opponent’s defensive barrier. The game continued 18.g6! Qc6 19.h6! (thematic line opener) 19…b6? 20.gxh7+ Kh8 21.hxg7+ Nxg7 22.f6! and Black’s position is hopeless. After 23.Bh6 mate on g7 is unavoidable. Trinidad & Tobago did exactly the same (20/22), except for their loss against Puerto Rico, and their excellent second place guarantees a spot in the next stage. The third qualifying spot went to the team of Haiti, scoring an excellent 17/22, which will allow them to keep fighting next weekend against many top countries seeded into the event. Huge congratulations to them for competing at a high level despite everything they are going through. Pairings of the rounds, live games, PGN files and other useful information can be found on the FIDE Online Olympiad website. Please note that all results and standings remain provisional until the fair play panel submit its daily report. The games can be followed online on www.chess.com (Events), presented by Wouter Bik,