Swedish Championship 2024: Vitaly Sivuk retains title
GM Vitaly Sivuk won the Swedish Championship 2024 defending his national champion title. Like last year, the Swedish Chess Championship 2024 featured several categories, from a youth tournament to the Sverigemästarklassen, a round-robin tournament with classical time control for Sweden’s top chess players. in Växjö’s spacious Fortnox Arena from June 28 to July 7. From L-R: Östlund, Hector, Seo, Lokander, Pantzar, Hillarp, Blomqvist, Galperin, Sivuk The defending champion took an early lead with four straight victories. Surprisingly, Vitaly then drew all remaining games, but it was enough to secure the title with 6.5/9 points. The 2022 champion Jonny Hector finished a half point behind and took silver, while Erik Blomqvist captured bronze thanks in no small part to his spectacular penultimate-round victory over Tiger Hillarp. Final standings: 1 GM Vitaly Sivuk 2569 6½ 2 GM Jonny Hector 2410 6 3 GM Erik Blomqvist 2527 5½ 4 IM Martin Lokander 2474 5 5 GM Platon Galperin 2551 5 6 IM Jung Min Seo 2442 5 7 GM Tiger Hillarp 2455 4½ 8 IM Milton Pantzar 2480 3 9 GM Daniel Semcesen 2451 2½ 10 FM Joar Östlund 2334 2 Complete results in all categories Official website: schack.se/ Photos: Lars OA Hedlund
WSTCC 2024: Iceland and France lead after six rounds
The FIDE World Senior Team Chess Championship has crossed the half-way mark. After six rounds of exciting battles the players have a rest day on Monday. It is a great chance to go sightseeing in this beautiful city, which offers wonderful architecture and cultural monuments. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich attended Round 6 and made the first ceremonial move on board 1 in the match Canada vs Iceland in the 50+ section. “We are very happy that the World Senior Team Championship is here in Krakow, Poland this time. The organizers do everything to make it a high quality event and they succeeded,” he said. “It is very important to make our senior players happy. They made great chess careers, they made many good friends and they are happy to come back, playing over the board with each other, having join memories and also visiting new places. It is very important for FIDE the make chess accessible to all ages and World Senior Team Championship is a part of this great tradition,” FIDE President added. The standings in the tournament after Round 6 are as follows: In the 50+ competition, Iceland leads with 11 team points, closely followed by Italy, Israel, England 2, Canada, and the USA, all sitting on 8 points. The leaders scored five wins and drew their match with England 1, led by Michael Adams. Standings after six rounds 50+ In the 65+ section, France Cercle D’Echecs de Strasbourg seized the top position (11/12) after defeating Slovakia, while their main rivals England 1 and Israel drew their match. As a result, England 1 goes to the rest day in second place; Israel is third. Standings after six rounds 65+ The race for the titles is still very close in both sections, with three rounds remaining. In other news, FIDE “Capture” photo exhibition by Stev Bonhage was opened here in Krakow, following the one in Morocco just a week earlier. Official website: worldseniorteam2024.fide.com Photos: Mark Livshitz