Carissa Yip takes the sole leadership in World Juniors
Carissa Yip is now the sole leader of the World Girls Junior Championship in Mexico after defeating Ravi Rakshitta with the black pieces. The game was a Kraumer variation of the King’s Indian, where white went for a rare move, 10.Bg5. It was precisely this bishop that would cost Ravi the game, as she gave it up (or straight away blundered it?) for little compensation nine moves later. Nevertheless, the way Carissa exploited her opponent’s mistake was truly beautiful, with her rook and knight combo completely dominating the White pieces. With this victory, Carissa became the first sole leader in the Girls’ event on 5.5/6, having defeated her two direct rivals, Mariam Mkrtchyan and Ravi Rakshitta, in consecutive rounds. After the setback in round 5, the Armenian returned to her winning ways with a very fine victory against the young Miaoyi Lu. The Chinese prodigy, with black, placed her Queen on a8 to reinforce her pressure along the long diagonal to counterweight her opponent’s Catalan bishop. However, as soon as some black pieces blocked the diagonal, the Queen found itself misplaced and far from the action, and Mkrtchyan took advantage of this fact in a masterful way, scoring a very valuable point and bouncing back from her 5th-round defeat in very convincing fashion. Sofiia Hryzlova, from Switzerland, and Beloslava Krasteva, from Bulgaria, also won in Riybd 6 and are now chasing the leader with 5/6, while Candela Francisco and Barbara Goraj drew their game on board two, which leaves them with 4.5/6. Yip, Goraj and Krasteva have been undefeated in the competition so far. In the open section, Marc Andria Maurizzi drew with the black pieces against Elham Amar of Norway. Meanwhile, five of his sixteen pursuers scored victories to catch up with the leader. For the first 15 moves, the game followed a well-known variant of the Petroff that has been played by many top GMs, but Elham deviated from known theory with 16.Bh3, which drastically changed the position. However, after the exchange of rooks, the game was completely equal, and the players split the point – probably a satisfactory result for them both. On board two, Jan Subelj obtained some initiative against Hans Niemann’s Sicilian, but objectively speaking, he never had an advantage, and the game ended in a draw by perpetual check after 36 moves. The same result was reached in the game between Arseniy Nesterov and Luka Budisavljevic after very solid play from both parts in a closed Catalan. The first decisive outcome was registered on board four, where Ruben Koellner defeated Rudik Makarian with White in a rare line of the London System. The German won a pawn in the opening and converted his advantage by weaving a lovely mating net with his rook and knight. Andy Woodward lost, with White, to Gleb Dudin, who moved to 5/6, unbeaten. Despite this setback, the hopes for the 13-year-old American to achieve a GM norm are still alive, as he is still on 4/6 and gaining 6 rating points. Maurizzi, Pranav, Dudin, Koellner, Dushyant and Santiago Avila are now all tied in first place with 5/6. The main pairings for the seventh round are Maurizzi – Pranav, Dudin – Koellner and Dushyant – Avila, all with 5/6 in the open section. In the Girls’ competition, the leader, Yip, will have white against one of the tournament’s revelations, Sofiia Hryzlova (pictured above) of Switzerland, while Krasteva will face Mariam Mkrtchyan on board two. Standings after Round 6: OPEN GIRLS Written by David Llada Photos: David Llada Official website: juniorchesschampionship.fenamacajedrez.com/
FIDE World Senior Team Championship: Day 7 recap
Italy beat USA to take over the top position in the S50; Germany Lasker Schachstiftung GK is unstoppable in the S65 section. The seventh round brought some unexpected results in the S50 section and very expected results in the S65 section. Italy scored a very convincing victory over USA. As the match went on, the American team didn’t even stand a chance. On board one, David (2523) demonstrated his attacking prowess and demolished Shabalov (2465) in mere 29 moves. Black’s position was already bad, but his last move 21…h6, only provoked the crashing 22.Nxf7! Qx75 23.Qg4 Kg7 24.f5! and the curtain fell just five moves down the road – 1-0. On board three, Ortega (2410) choked off Novikov (2513) in a hedgehog where, at first sight, it appeared that Black was quite alright, in view of White’s atypical placement of the pieces. It turned out however that it was a very effective setup. After 16.e5! dxe5 17.Bxe7 Nxe7 18.Nxe5 White’s initiative became too strong to contain, and Ortega didn’t allow his opponent even a single chance, winning in 36 moves. On the boards where USA was playing with the white pieces, Ehlvest (2530) couldn’t do much against Godena’s (2429) Queen’s Gambit Accepted and Yermolinsky’s (2419) misplacement of the rooks in the middlegame in the Catalan meant that he was the one fighting for equality against Bellia (2388). An impressive and dominating match for the Italian team that stepped up when it mattered most. With this victory, Italy took over the lead from USA and how sits alone at the top of the standings with 12 points. In the match between Iceland and North Macedonia Alkaloid, the first victory was scored on board three, where, in a very sharp position Bogdanovski (2385) blundered against Arnason (2419). White doesn’t really threaten much on the kingside, so Black had a chance to start his own play on the queenside with either 29…b4 or 29…Qc2. Instead, he played a defensive move 29…Rd6? which allowed White to push 30.h5, creating a real threat g5-g6. In time trouble, Black went for what looked like a simplifying sequence, missing that after 30…fxg5 31.Rfxg5 Ne3? 32.Bxe3 Qxe3 33.Qxe3 He cannot recapture on e3 in view of the mate on g8. 1-0 A balanced draw on board four between Stanojoski (2351) and Thorallsson (2382) followed before Nedev (2465) equalised the score with a win over Petursson (2396). The game was one-sided, as Black couldn’t recover from the bad opening choice he made early on. In this well-known Najdorf position arising from the line with 6.h3, Black went for the very dubious 8…d5? which led to a bad endgame after 9.fxe5 Nxe4 10.Nxe4 dxe4 11.Qxd8 Kxd8 12.Bf4. Black had problems with the pawn on e4, and while he tried to defend it with tactical means, eventually, White emerged with an extra pawn, which he converted without much trouble. With the match tied, everything depended on the result on board one. Hjartarson (2432) and Georgiev (2542) reminded us of the famous Karpov-Kasparov duels in the Classical Scheveningen. The position remained balanced for a very long time, but it was notable that Hjartarson avoided possible repetitions and kept the game going. Black should have just bided his time with 57…Qe7, for example, but he lunged forward with 57…f5? Most likely, this decision was based on miscalculation, as White could have taken the pawn on f5, either with knight or queen, which would have given him a winning advantage. However, it appears that both players were under the impression that the pawn shouldn’t be taken. The game went 58.b6 (also good) Qf6 59.Nc6? (instead of the winning capture on f5). Now Black should have played 59…Qg5, but he probably missed the drawing combination: After 59…Qg5! 60.b7 Nxb7 61.Rxb7 Rxg2! 62.Qxg2 Qh4 leads to a perpetual check. Georgiev chose 59…Qf7?! which resulted in White’s winning a piece after 60.Nd8 Qxd5 61.Qxd5 Rxd5 62.b7, but the ensuing endgame should still be a draw. White managed to win Black’s d-pawn, though it shouldn’t have sufficed. Play continued for a very long time, and the critical moment arose on move 101. White created the threat of bringing the knight to f5. Black had only one way to stop that – 101…Rb3! with the idea to pin the knight after 102.Kf4 Rb4!. Georgiev either missed White’s idea or his best defence and played 101…Re3? and after 102.Kf4 Rb3 103.Ng3, the knight was coming to f5. The game finished with a neat two-move combination. 109.Rxg7+ Kf6 110.g5+! Black resigned in view of 110…Kxf5 111.Rf7 when the rook on f1 is lost. 1-0 A dramatic win for Iceland, who are now sharing second place with USA, one point behind the leaders, whom they face in the penultimate round. In the duel of the two English teams, England 1 beat England 2 by 3-1. Adams (2662) outplayed Dishman (2304) on board one, the game ending in a pretty checkmate. White wrapped up the game with 37.Nc5 Rb4 38.Bf8 mate 1-0. What happened on board two was some sort of a mystery. After both players followed theory until move 13, Lewis (2238) chose the rare and not-very-good 13.Nf3?! instead of the theoretical 13.Qa3. After Flear (2405) replied with the natural 13…c5, White had a hallucination. Lewis played 14.Ng5?!? and after the simple 14…Qxg2, with a double attack on the rook on h1 and the knight on g5, the game was practically over. White resigned six moves later. The other two games Arkell (2352) – Clark (2278) and Stebbings (2257) – Davies (2354) were drawn without much hassle. This win allowed England 1 to stay in contention for the medals. Since they have already played all the strong teams, they can now expect weaker opponents in the last two rounds. In the S65 section, the usual suspects kept on winning. Germany Lasker Schachstiftung GK beat France 3-1 thanks to wins with the white pieces on boards one and three. The finale on board one was notable. Knaak (2438) was winning for some time, but there was no real need for Legky (2357) to blunder into a mate in one (!) with 34…Qf7?? 35.Qd6 mate. On board three, Kalintschew (2377) crowned his positional domination against Boudre (2245) with an effective exchange