Volokitin and Dolzhykova win Ukrainian Championship
Andrei Volokitin and Kateryna Dolzhykova are crowned champions of Ukraine. The 90th open and 81st women’s Ukrainian championships, 10-player round-robin tournaments, took place from December 8-17, 2021, in the Scientific Library of Yaroslav the Wise National Law University, Kharkiv. Following his strong performance in the European Team Championship, Volokitin completed the tournament undefeated and scored 6/9 to win his third national title. The resident of Lviv repeated his success of 2004 and 2015. The champion started with four draws, but in Round 5, he scored a crucial victory over his main competitor the top-rated Yuriy Kryvoruchko (pictured below) that gave him a great boost. Heading into the final round a half-point ahead of Alexander Moiseenko and Yuriy Kryvoruchko, Andrei did not leave it to chance and secured gold by defeating Yuri Kuzubov with black pieces. Krivoruchko also did his best in the final round beating Spartak Vysochin with black to claim silver. Moiseenko drew his last game and gave Kirill Shevchenko a chance to catch up. The talented youngster did not miss this opportunity as he ground down Volodimir Onischuk in a heavy piece endgame and clinched bronze thanks to better Sonneborn-Berger over Moiseenko. Final standings open: 1 GM Volokitin, Andrei 2677 6 2 GM Kryvoruchko, Yuriy 2685 5½ 3 GM Shevchenko, Kirill 2655 5 4 GM Moiseenko, Alexander 2597 5 5 GM Onyshchuk, Volodymyr 2620 4 6 GM Vysochin, Spartak 2505 4 7 GM Kuzubov, Yuriy 2652 4 8 GM Kravtsiv, Martyn 2604 4 9 GM Omelja, Artem 2509 4 10 IM Bakhmatsky, Vladislav 2432 3½ The eighth-rated Katerina Dolzhykova caused a minor sensation in the women’s event, earning her second national title. She previously won this event back in 2011. The champion demonstrated truly fighting chess, making only two draws in nine games. It really paid off as Kateryna scored 6 points out of 9 and came out on top despite two defeats. Olga Babiy and Olena Martynkova finished a half-point behind the champion, with the former taking silver as the winner of their direct encounter. Final standings women: 1 WIM Dolzhykova, Kateryna 2161 6 2 WGM Babiy, Olga 2259 5½ 3 WIM Martynkova, Olena 2180 5½ 4 FM Berdnyk, Mariia 2307 5 5 IM Gaponenko, Inna 2347 5 6 WGM Doluhanova, Evgeniya 2264 5 7 Tsirulnik, Maritsa 2054 4½ 8 WIM Rakhmangulova, Anastasiya 2174 4½ 9 WIM Petrova, Irina 2141 2 10 Lomakina, Anzhelika 2009 2 Official website: ukrchess.org.ua/ Photo: official website
FIDE Qualification Commission conducts survey
The Qualification Commission meeting on 14th December covered a number of topics about which we are seeking as wide an input as possible, so as to improve our regulations in future. The deadline to reply to this survey is 09:00 UTC on Wednesday, 22nd December. The link to the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHYeGmQPyoaTOcEs-g88H6Oyiq92JKPChdFEYrfVvKHGHleQ/viewform There will be a further open QC meeting discussing the survey results at 12:00 UTC on Wednesday, 22nd December. You can register for that meeting here: https://congress2021.fide.com/commissions/ Alex Holowczak,Qualification Commission Secretary