Nepomniachtchi Wins Russian Championship (With a Big Assist from Dubov)
Entering the last round of the 2020 Russian Championship (or the Russian Extreme Mega Stupendous Superfinal, or whatever they're calling it this year) Ian Nepomniachtchi and Sergey Karjakin were tied for first, with Vladimir Fedoseev a point behind. All three leaders had the black pieces, making the first order of business not losing rather than winning.
Indeed, none of the players managed to win, and in Nepo's case, he didn't even try. His game with Maksim Chigaev wasn't exactly a barn-burner: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 Ng4 7.Bc1 Nf6 8.Be3 Ng4 9.Bc1 Nf6 10.Be3 and draw.
That rendered the result of the game between Andrey Esipenko and Fedoseev meaningless with respect to the battle for first many hours before their game wound up drawn (in 73 moves), so all that was left was Karjakin's game with Dubov. And what a game it was! Dubov, whose exceptional creativity in the opening (as elsewhere) has been praised even by Magnus Carlsen, trotted out a very rare line of the Italian against Karjakin, leading to an absolute mess. The line may not be a problem for a computer, but it was more than enough of a problem for the former world championship finalist. Karjakin was soon befuddled, Dubov won a great game, and Nepomniachtchi won the championship. (Dubov-Karjakin, with my annotations, is here.)
Congratulations to Ian Nepomniachtchi, whose victory came against a very strong field, as you'll see from the final standings:
1. Nepomniachtchi 7.5 (out of 11)
2. Karjakin 7
3-4. Fedoseev, Dubov 6.5
5-6. Chigaev, Artemiev 6
7-8. Vitiugov, Svidler 5.5
9-10. Esipenko, Matlakov 5
11. Goganov 3.5
12. Antipov 2 (But it was 2/6; he withdrew at that point.)
Reader Comments (4)
One of the aspects of Russian chess I admire, especially when compared with the Dutch school, is the willingness to try suspicious openings now and then. Think of Beliavsky playing the Traxler Gambit. Piket and Van Wely never did; Timman was an exception.
[DM: There are a lot more Russian players, especially at the top, so you'll have more variance. If one goes down a bit, there some crazy Dutchmen too - Bosboom's opening play, for example, leaves either everything or nothing to be desired, depending on one's taste.]
The championship seemed already decided when Nepomniachtchi beat Karjakin in the direct encounter. But then Nepo lost against a certain Daniil Dubov and four players were back in the race - Nepo, Karjakin, Dubov himself and Chigaev. Dubov lost in the penultimate round against Fedoseev - not because of, according to Fedoseev, "nonsense" in the opening (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6 4.c3 f5!?) but because Fedoseev refuted a later piece sacrifice - and Chigaev lost against underdog and near-tailender Goganov.
Counter-intuitive that Fedoseev had the better Sonneborn-Berger tiebreak (35.5 for him va. 35 for Dubov).
In case you didn't know: Antipov had to withdraw or "was withdrawn" after a positive Corona test. Other players tested negative, and the event continued. Is "Extreme Mega Stupendous Superfinal" hinting at the fact that the event wouldn't have happened OTB, or would have been cancelled at halftime in many other countries?
[DM: Thanks for filling in further details. As for "Extreme Mega...[etc.]", I'm making fun of their calling it the "Superfinal". Not the "Russian Championship" or even the "Russian Championship Final" (to contrast it with one or more semi-finals or qualifiers), but the "Russian Championship Superfinal". I'm just helping them along in their inflationary path.]
Antipov was kicked out technically because he tested positive for covid-19.
Maybe Russia got inspired by the U.S. Superbowl (out of reach for your favorite football team)?
Chess team competitions in various European countries also have "special" highest leagues:
- in the Netherlands Meesterklasse on top of 1. Klasse, at a regional level Topklasse above 1. Klasse (promotion class before regional and national competitions were separated from each other a few years ago)
- in France Top12 above National 1
- in Spain Division de Honor above Primera Division
[DM: Thanks for supplying some other examples. About the Super Bowl, however, there is no "Bowl" simpliciter. In college football, there were (and still are) various bowl games, and the NFL Championship was just called that: the NFL Championship. In 1960, a rival league, the AFL, was formed, and after the 1966 season the two leagues played a further game after their particular championships were won. It was called, imaginatively enough, the AFL-NFL Championship Game, but Lamar Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs (the AFL's entrant in the first interleague championship game) informally called it the "Super Bowl", allegedly inspired by his kids playing with a Super Ball toy (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl#Origin). The name wound up sticking, and became official in time for the third game, which was the first one won by the AFL. After the Chiefs won SB IV, the leagues merged, but the old "NFL Championship" title had been supplanted by the far more marketable title we all know and love today.]