WR Chess Masters R05: Who’s going to stop Aronian?
Levon Aronian’s fifth-round win doesn’t mean it is all over for other participants in the WR Chess Masters, but the 40-year-old is now the clear favourite to win the tournament. After his full point against Anish Giri, Aronian leads the standings with four points from five games, one ahead of Wesley So and Gukesh with three each. With his third win in the tournament, Aronian is back in the world’s top 10 (live ranking). If you’re as good as Anish Giri and Levon Aronian, you don’t need a board to discuss the game. | Photo: Lennart Ootes Anish Giri had surprised Aronian in the opening: Berlin Defense instead of the Open Ruy Lopez Aronian had expected. Perhaps it was his four drawn games in a row that tempted Giri to push things harder on move 21 instead of simplifying into a hardly dangerous endgame? As a result, the world number five came under pressure and eventually even had to allow Aronian to double two rooks on his seventh rank. That could not end well. Vincent Keymer was the second winner of the day. After 17 winless super-tournament games in Wijk aan Zee and Düsseldorf, he was granted a full point in the 18th. Keymer is no longer at the bottom of the table, at least not alone. He is now part of a quintet with two points from five games. After 0.5 points scored in the last three games, Nodirbek Abdusattorov is part of that quintet as well. In the game between the two best 18-year-olds in the world, Abdusattorov played his part in making it a battle worth watching. Whether his pawn sacrifice in the opening was improvisation or preparation is unclear. “I certainly didn’t believe him,” Keymer recounted after the game. The critical move of the game: Abdusattorov could have played 23…Bxb4, probably nothing would have gone wrong for him. But he didn’t resist the temptation to play 23…Bb6?!! and invite Vincent Keymer to 24.b5, which only seems to win the c6-bishop. Abdusattorov had planned 24…Re6! (the only move that doesn’t lose) with a huge Black’s attack. Despite Keymer’s disbelief, Abdusattorov was to put up strong play against the white kingside. But then he succumbed to the temptation of a pseudo piece sacrifice for further attack instead of moving the game into calm waters that might even be slightly advantageous for Black. When Abdusattorov finally slammed a rook into the white castling position, Keymer thought it was “almost a miracle that I’m not mated, it looks so dangerous.” All the black pieces were perfectly placed, he said, except that “he has too few of them, unfortunately.” The Keymer stare, now a trademark of the world’s second-best 18-year-old. | Photo: Lennart Ootes For Praggnanandhaa, there was a very good reason to end the game early against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. His sister Vaishali was playing for her team “Indian Yogis” against the “Canada Chessbrahs” in the Pro Chess League on Tuesday afternoon. And in their ranks was a certain Magnus Carlsen. Who wouldn’t want to watch his sister play a live match against the World Champion? Unfortunately, the game seemed to be heading for a heavy-piece endgame, which could have been an opportunity for the Indian to celebrate his love of grinding out small advantages. But it didn’t come to that. A hasty advance by Pragg on the kingside gave Duda the counterplay he needed to keep the game in balance and force a repetition before move 40. Pragg now has two reasons to be dissatisfied with his fifth round. Against Duda, he could have pressed longer and possibly got more out of it. And Vaishali vs. Carlsen, he still had to watch in the replay. The door to tournament victory is not yet closed for Jan-Krzysztof Duda, but with 2 points from 5 games, he will have to finish with a huge push if he wants to be on top in the end. | Photo: Lennart Ootes Aspiring World Championship finalist Ian Nepomniachtchi failed to gain momentum for everything else on Rest Monday. Nepo’s draw streak continued, and he even has to be satisfied with that. With the black pieces, his opponent Gukesh managed to outplay the world number two in a symmetrical, balanced position. Nepomniachtchi can at least take away from this encounter that he held it. When he found himself in an extremely critical endgame down a pawn, Nepomniachtchi rallied to a precise defensive performance and saved at least half a point. Got away with half a point: Ian Nepomniachtchi is not yet in World Championship form. | Photo: Lennart Ootes There wasn’t much action between Andrey Esipenko and Wesley So in the fifth round. Esipenko didn’t think he got anything out of it with White, and So thought a draw with Black was a decent result. The two repeated moves, and after 22 moves, the game was drawn. Text: Official website Photo: Lennart Ootes Offical website: wr-chess.com/
FIDE resolution on the Russian Federation joining the ACF
The FIDE Council reviewed yesterday, February 21, the report prepared by the Constitutional Commission on the request made by the Chess Federation of Russia (CFR) to join the Asian Chess Federation (ACF). The Asian Chess Federation is expected to decide on this request at its General Assembly, which will take place in Abu Dhabi on February 28. Its acceptance would automatically imply that the Chess Federation of Russia withdraws its membership to the European Chess Union, since a federation cannot belong to two continents at the same time. In view of this, and after examining all legal considerations presented to them by the Constitutional Commission, the FIDE Council has made two main decisions: 1) To rename Zone 1.6 (Russia) as Zone 3.8, as part of Asia, effective May 1, 2023, given that the Asian Chess Federation confirms it accepts the Chess Federation of Russia as a member in their General Assembly. 2) To adopt a series of additional measures to protect those players who decide to leave the Russian Chess Federation at this point and join any European chess federation. Players previously belonging to the CFR will be allowed to represent their new federation with immediate effect, from the next day of submitting their application, without any restrictions. All transfer fees, to FIDE or CFR, are waived. You can read below the full resolution: FIDE Council Resolution Whereas: 1) Chess Federation of Russia (CFR) has informed FIDE about their request to be accepted as a member of the Asian Chess Federation (ACF); 2) FIDE Constitutional Commission (CC) has reviewed the matter from the legal perspective and recommends the FIDE Council revise FIDE zones before such transfer of RCF to ACF; 3) CC has highlighted the need to provide the minimum remedy and fairness to players who have chosen to remain in European Chess Union (ECU), FIDE Council decides: 1. To approve that Zone 1.6. (Russia) from May 1, 2023, is considered to belong to the Asian zone, and will be renamed as Zone 3.8. 2. To approve that: 2.1. All the transfer fees to FIDE and compensation fees to the CFR are waived for any player who has previously been registered with the RCF and who, from March 1, 2022, until August 31, 2023, has applied or will apply for the membership of any of the ECU’s federation. 2.2. All these players (further – Players) have the right to represent the new federation in all official individual events of FIDE from the next day of submitting their application without any restrictions, provided that all other conditions for the transfer have been met besides paying the fees. Such applications should be checked and confirmed or rejected (only if the application contradicts art. 2.6. of the current Transfer rules) by FIDE 15 days after their submission. 2.3. The conditions mentioned in Articles 2.1 and 2.2 of this resolution also apply to Russian players who have transferred to the special FIDE status. 2.4 In the event that the Players decide to leave the national federation to which they transferred under the above procedure, such a federation is not entitled to receive any compensation fee. Also, these Players can transfer to CFR later with no fees to be paid to their previous national federation or FIDE. 2.5. The right of such Players to participate in European team competitions is determined by the decision of the ECU, without any additional restrictions from FIDE. The decision about the rights of such Players to represent the new federation in FIDE team competitions should be approved by the FIDE Council no later than by May 1, 2023. 2.6. To avoid any doubt, official FIDE competitions are FIDE world championships and events providing direct qualification spots to FIDE world championships, FIDE Candidates tournaments and the FIDE World Cups. 3. Both above-mentioned decisions come into force, given the Asian Chess Federation (ACF) accepts the Chess Federation of Russia (CFR) as a member of the ACF as of May 1, 2023. 4. If the date of ACF accepting CFR as its member differs, the above decisions apply from the same date, respectively. 5. To create a FIDE working group for further revision of the structure of FIDE zones according to the opinion of the Constitutional Commission.