EICC 2023, R07: Korobov retakes the lead
Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov (UKR, 2658) once again took the sole lead in the European Individual Chess Championship 2023 after defeating IM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (GRE, 2520) in Round 7. The Greek IM sacrificed a piece in a very sharp and complicated game, but Korobov found a way to defend and consolidate the position. Kourkoulos-Arditis had his chances for a draw, but he did not manage to find the only moves that would have kept him in the game. With today’s victory, Anton Korobov scored 6.5/7 and is now a half-point ahead of GM Benjamin Gledura (HUN, 2637), the only player from the large group of players with 5 points to score the victory. Gledura is now in clear second place with 6 points after winning a drawish endgame GM Giga Quparadze (GEO, 2483). Playing with Black, Quparadze solved all the opening problems but completely mishandled the endgame. Gledura used his passed b-pawn to reach the won queen ending and scored a full point. Heading into Round 8, 13 players tie for the third place scoring 5.5 points each: IM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (GRE, 2520), GM Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR, 2655), GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen (CZE, 2651), GM Frederik Svane (GER, 2577), GM Etienne Bacrot (FRA, 2659), GM Jaime Santos Latasa (ESP, 2655), GM Alexey Sarana (FIDE, 2668), GM Alexandr Predke (SRB, 2684), GM Nijat Abasov (AZE, 2625), GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy (UKR, 2611), GM Boris Gelfand (ISR, 2674), GM Yuriy Kuzubov (UKR, 2616) and GM Kirill Shevchenko (ROU, 2668). Round 8 starts tomorrow at 15:00 CEST and the top 10 pairings are: 1. Korobov, Anton (6½) – Gledura, Benjamin (6)2. Santos Latasa, Jaime (5½) – Predke, Alexandr (5½)3. Gelfand, Boris (5½) – Nguyen Thai Dai Van (5½)4. Sarana, Alexey (5½) – Kuzubov, Yuriy (5½)5. Shevchenko, Kirill (5½) – Abasov, Nijat (5½)6. Kourkoulos-Arditis, Stamatis (5½) – Bacrot, Etienne (5½)7. Ponomariov, Ruslan (5½) – Svane, Frederik (5½)8. Sargissian, Gabriel (5) – Bernadskiy, Vitaliy (5½)9. Kadric, Denis (5) – Martirosyan,Haik (5)10. Lagarde, Maxime (5) – Navara, David (5) Live broadcast of the games can be followed with commentaries by IM Miodrag Perunovic on the ECU YouTube channel. Text and photos: official website Official website: eicc2023.com/
International Women’s Day Chess festival held in Tirana, Albania
International Chess Federation, Balkan Chess Federation and Albanian Chess Federation, in collaboration with Albanian Center for Openness and Dialogue, jointly held the International Women’s Day Chess festival, a series of chess events to celebrate the International Women’s Day and reinforce the commitment to women’s equality. The large-scale celebration took place from March 9-10, 2023 and included the “Balkan Chess Star” tournament, the women’s workshop “Chess is a safe space for women”, organized with contribution from ECU Women Commission, and a simul with female chess influencers. The workshop “Chess is a safe space for women” featured Dana Reizniece-Ozola, WGM, FIDE Deputy Chair of Management Board; Antoaneta Stefanova, GM, women’s world champion; Anastasia Sorokina, WIM, Chair of FIDE Commission for Women in Chess, international arbiter; Agnieszka Milewska, Director of the Women’s Chess in England; Majlinda Pilinci, General Secretary of Albanian Chess federation, member of FIDE PDC Commission, international organizer. “No matter what position I was occupying in my career, chess was always a source of my inspiration. Starting from elementary things like thinking a few moves ahead, seeing the whole chessboard, not just one square, respecting your opponent, remembering you’re not the only person in a game, appreciating the value of time, and making decisions. So in real life, whatever profession you will choose, even this very training and a simul that we are playing with you will help,” said Dana Reizniece-Ozola to the participants of the event.” She was supported by Antoaneta Stefanova, who stressed the importance of decision-making for every person: “Each one of us should find a way to be useful for his country and society, and chess gives us a lot of preparation for life. I think that decision-making is one of the advantages of chess players. From a very early age, we get used to thinking, making decisions and then facing the consequences. Even though we were defeated so many times, we are not afraid to start a new game and make new hard decisions. Choose wisely. As we, chess players, say, it is always good to have a plan, even a poor one, than not to have a plan at all.” The “Balkan Chess Star” blitz tournament brought together eight girls born in 2007 and younger, representing all Balkan countries, who first competed in 2 round-robin qualification events on March 9. The Final was held today, March 10, between the winners of each event. Ailin Ndreko from Albania and Jona Recica from Kosovo qualified for the final from their groups. Ailin Ndreko bested her opponent and won the tournament. After the winner was determined, all the participants attended a masterclass by Antoaneta Stefanova, where they studied the Trompowsky Attack. Being in Albania, the FIDE delegation visited the National Olympic Committee and met its president Mr Fidel Ylli. The parties discussed mutual support in chess development and future cooperation. While the first part of the International Women’s Day Chess festival was held offline, the event continues with online training. The arbiters seminar by IA Panagiotis Nikolopoulos (GRE), IA Mihail Prevenios (GRE), and IA Tshepiso Lopang (BOT) is held from March 10-12. It will award norms and titles of FIDE Arbiter and is free for national female arbiters nominated by their federations. The Online FIDE Trainers’ Seminar for female trainers organized by the FIDE TRG Commission in partnership with the FIDE WOM Commission, scheduled for March 17-19, will finalize the celebration of International Women’s Day. Photo: Anna Volkova
FIDE – ISF World School Teams Online Chess Cup postponed
Following requests from participants and enabling more teams to register and take part in the Cup, the Organizing Committee of the FIDE – ISF World School Teams Online Chess Cup decided to make some changes to the event regulations. Given the above, the competition is postponed. The new dates for Qualification events will be the 29th and 30th of April, and the Finals to take place on the 6th and 7th of May. The changes below have been made to the regulations: Ages 8 (2015), 9 (2014) and 10 (2013) were included in the U15 category. Players could play in the upper group teams. So U15 category players can play both in U15 and U18 teams, but schools must choose one of that categories, as a player could not play in both categories. The updated version of the regulations will be published soon. About FIDE – ISF World School Teams Online Chess Cup FIDE – ISF World School Teams Online Chess Cup is organized by FIDE, ISF (the International School Sport Federation) and World Chess and provides a platform for schools from FIDE and ISF member countries, as well as students from around the world, to connect with chess enthusiasts from across the globe and showcase their skills in an official international chess tournament. The tournament features two age categories, U15 and U18. Each school team must consist of 1 to 7 full-time students from the same school. The winners and medalists of the event will be rewarded with exclusive team training sessions with world-famous grandmasters, chessboards signed by the GMs, subscriptions for the World Chess Masterclasses program, and FIDE Online Arena premium membership packages. The tournament will be held online on the FIDE Online Arena, with the final stage broadcast live on World Chess and FIDE’s YouTube channels. The new registration deadline is April 22, 2023. Please visit isf.fide.com to learn more about the event and to register your team.