The City of Hoogeveen, Netherlands became World Cities Chess Champion after beating Baku, Azerbaijan 2.5-1.5 in the finals of the knockout tournament 21-28 December 2012 in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. In the match for 3rd place, Novi Sad (Serbia) beat Tashkent (Uzbekistan). All in all there were 24 city teams. Top seeds were Paris (2677), Hoogeveen (2666) and Lviv (2659).

This event is held at two-year intervals, with teams representing cities (maximum one city per country). National federations are eligible to play with their national team members representing a city. The FIDE World Cities Championship is a sequel to the Chess Olympiad and Continental Cities Championships.

The Al Ain Chess Club of the United Arab Emirates Chess Federation has committed to organize the World Cities Championship for the Sheikh Zayed Cup for five times until 2020. The prize fund for the 2012 edition is $150,000.


See the results of the 2012 World Cities Chess Championship

Top seeds Russia emerged clear winners after the ninth and final round of the TATA 14th IBCA Chess Olympiad for the Blind 2012 at Hotel Le Royal Meridien, Chennai here today. Russia finished their engagements with 15 match points, clinching the team Gold. Taking the Silver and Bronze team medals were Ukraine and Spain respectively. Germany with 14 match points, tied for second spot with Ukraine and Spain, but finished fourth on tie-breaks.

India "A" went down 1.5 - 2.5 to Germany in a close match, losing their medal chances. But the silver lining was the performance of Kishan Gangolli who took the individual Gold medal in the third board. Undefeated Kishan came up with an impressive show, scoring 7.5 points from 9 rounds. With six wins and three draws, Kishan stood like a rock in the middle boards, and dictated India "A" team's fortunes. Support from Swapanil Shah, Darpan Inani and Makwana Ashvin helped India "A" to the fifth spot. In the history of Chess Olympiad for the blind, the fifth spot here is India's best.

Top seeds Russia came up with a powerful performance scoring a 3-1 victory over United Kingdom. Victories in boards two, three and four clinched the issue in favor of Russia. International Master Colin Crouch reduced the margin for United Kingdom defeating International Master Meshkov Yuri in a hard fought game. The win helped Crouch clinch the top board Silver medal.

India "B" finished the last outing holding Turkey to a 2-2 draw., sharing the 18th place.

Final standings:
1 Russia 15 match points, 2-4 Ukraine, Spain, Germany 14, 5 India 11, 6-9 Poland, United Kingdom, Venezuela, Croatia 10, 10-15 Kazakhastan, Serbia, Bulgaria, Columbia, Romania, Slovenia 9, 16-19 Sweden, Iran, India "B", Turkey 8, 20-21 Slovakia, Italy 7, 22 South Africa 6, 23 France 5, 24 Denmark 4 25 The Netherlands 1

Board winners:
Board 1 - IM Pulvett Daniel (Venezuela)
Board 2 - Shepelev Igor (Ukraine)
Board 3 - Kishan Gangolli (India "A")
Board 4 - Yatsishin Ivan (Ukraine)
Board 5 - FM Babarykin Stanislav (Russia)

/ taken from http://www.fide.com /

See Blind Olympiads summary

Asian Chess Federation president Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifah Al Nahyan opening the Asian Nations Cup Chess Team Championship in Zao Zhuang, Shandong Province, China. Fourteen men’s teams are participating in the 9-round Swiss Open. Ten women’s teams are competing in the 9-round Round Robin. Visit chess-results.com for pairings and standings.

Defending champion India whitewashed Yemen as three teams scored 4-0 against their opponents in the opening round of the Asian Nations Cup in Zao Zhuang, China. GMs Krishnan Sasikiran, Pentala Hari Krishna, Abhijeet Gupta and Gopal Narayanan got the full point for India.

Vietnam shutout Korea on victories of GM Le Quang Liem and Dao Thein Hai and IMs Nguyen Duc Hoa and Nguyen Van Huy.

Top seed China 1 blanked Iraq 4-0 on wins by GMs Wang Hao, Wang Yue, Ding Lirenk and Yu Yangyi. Iran blanked Hong Kong 4-0 on wins by GMEhsan Ghaem Maghami and Asghar Golizadeh and IMs Alavismoghaddam and Dereni Porya.

Singapore followed suit and beat Chinese Taipei 4-0 as IMs Kevin Goh Wei Min and Chan Peng Kong and FM Chan Yi Ren Daniel and Iskandar Bin Abdullah scored.

In the Women’s division, China 1 beat China 3 with 4-0, Iran edged Vietnam 2.5-1.5. WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan, playing top board for Iran, beat WGM Pham Le Thao Nguyen. On board 2, WGM Nguyen Thi Thanh An of Vietnam drew with WIM Khademalsharieh Sarasadat of Iran. WGM Pham Bich Ngoc beat WIM Ghader Pour Sharesteh of Iran to tie the score but on board 4, WIM Mitra Hejazipour beat WIM Nguyen Thi Mai Hung to seal the victory.

/ taken from fide.com /

That Russian chess school is World's leading, is nothing but truisms. That Russian chess league is one of strongests team tournaments around seems to be obvious too. Needles to say, six out of seven recent European Club Cup winners hail from Russia.

But that its 20-year history hasn't been covered so far may be kind of unusual statement. But yes, sadly there is virtually no information on the history of Russian team championship. This is why we launch the brand new project and it starts today.

As always, it was preceded by dilligent and thorough research. A lot of details saw the sunlight for the first time, but some mysteries still remain to be solved.

Watch out Karpov, Shirov, Gelfand, Aronian, Karjakin, Nepomnyaschy, Caruana, Giri and the likes; follow the internecine battles between European Club Cup winners. Plenty of top class chess and juicy statistical section - don't miss it!

Some trivia:
Editions total - 18
Most team wins - Tomsk (4), Sankt Petersburg (3)
Most appearances - GM Rublevsky (17 - only missed one in 1994!)
Most individual titles - 4 (Dreev, Sakaev, Rublevsky, Akopian, Inarkiev, Yakovenko)
Best % (min. 50 games): GM Smirnov 51.5/73 = 70.5%

>> CLICK HERE TO SEE EVENT SUMMARY <<


Attention! Внимание! Dear Russian (and not only Russian) readers! Can you please help? Missing information:
- 1992 team compositions and detailed results (game file is available, but not the round numbers and team line-ups). Click to check
- 1994 confirmed results (game file is complete, but we are missing press coverage!) Click to check
- 2002 most games and individual results are missing Click to check

Please do not forget to subscribe to the brand new OlimpBase Facebook fan page. Be in touch with latest OlimpBase news & updates. A lot of valuable staff is coming up next months. Don't miss it!



>> CLICK HERE TO SEE FACEBOOK PROFILE <<
(then please click "Like it" to subscribe)

Another really huge project has seen the sunlight today: the history of USSR team championships. Very little has been written on the topic and even less in available online. Too bad - the Soviet Championships for decades had attracted Soviet best players; one may safely claim they were then World's strongest team events.

Karpov, Spassky, Petrosian, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Keres, Boleslavsky, Korchnoi, Gaprindashvili, just to name a few were frequent guests.

The new folder on the left (can you spot it?) is devoted entirely to the history of team chess in the Soviet Union. It is divided into three parts:
- the almost annual USSR Team Championship (34 editions were played all in all)
- other team championships, including junior, farmer, trade union and republics' championship
- friendly tournaments, matches and match-tournaments


Before you start digging up the archives it is recommended that you read the About section to learn some basics of the complicated system of team events in the Soviet Union.

It has to be noted that the project would never succeed without the excellent RUSBASE run by A.A.Popovsky who collects all possible results of Soviet individual and team events.

Because a lot is yet to be found (many game results from USSR Team Championship are missing; a lot of data from minor team championship is still unknown) readers, especially from ex-Soviet republics, are asked for support.

"Yinzhou Cup" 2011 World Team Chess Championship today ended in Ningbo New Century Grand Hotel. Armenia drew 2-2 with Ukraine and successfully secured their title, the Chinese team won 2.5-1.5 over Hungary, defending championship Russian team lost 1.5-2.5 to the India team, and U.S. team 2.5-1.5 won over Israel, while the Azerbaijan team 2.5-1.5 won over Egypt.

The Chinese team behaved outstanding and won four consecutive rounds. Today's game against Hungary, the Chinese team showed great ambition and determination. Wang Yue played some quite instructional moves in the ending, gained tiny advantage by sacrificed a pawn, and gradually extended it to victory. Another eye-catching game was Li Chao versus female genius player Judit Polgar. The young talented Chinese teenager withstood great pressure and triumph on the difficult ending and took one valuable point, helped China to be the runner-up ultimately.

>> click here for detailed OlimpBase results & statistics of the 2011 event <<

Defending champions Russia team had another bad today toward India team and ended the tournament with an very unsatisfied 4 win, 2 draw, 3 lose. Russian famous player Peter Svidler obviously out of his status today and he lost to Surya Sekhar Ganguly in only 24 moves.The unexpected quick lost had significantly struck Russian players morale.Young talented player Ian Nepomniachtchi had to risk his game for a try to win, but the result came very grim. Fortunately, he still managed to surpass Akopian to get board gold medal, due to his outstanding personal performance.

The final rankings as follows: champion the Armenia team, runner-up the Chinese team, third place the Ukraine team, fourth the Russian Team, fifth the Hungary team, the United State team finished sixth, the Azerbaijan team finished seventh , the eighth Indian team and the ninth Israeli team, the tenth Egyptian team. The board gold medal won by Wang Hao from China (Board 1), Wang Yue from China (Board 2), Yan Nepomnyaschy from Russia (Board 3), Alexander Moiseenko from Ukraine (Board 4).

/ Taken from http://ningbo2011.fide.com /

See World Team Champoinship summary (1985-2011)

The 17th Asian Cities Championship was held from 22nd to 28th April in Kartika Chandra, Jakarta, Indonesia. 24 teams from 17 countries competed, with 18 Grandmasters and many titled players attending the event. The tournament format was 9-round Swiss and the prize fund amounted to 24000 US$.

Shi Jiazhuang City from China, also top seeded prior to the beginning, convincingly took the first place and the Dubai Cup by winning all nine matches. Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al-Nehayan, Asian Chess Federation President, presented the champions with the trophy.

GM Li Chao B from the winning team was the top performing player in the whole tournament, recording 8 points from nine games and 2763-elo playing level. Local fans are thrilled that WFM Chelsie Monika Sihite has earned her first IM norm. Final standings and top individual scores are listed bellow.

/ Taken from www.chessdom.com /

See Asian Cities Champoinship summary
See external reports: FIDE, ChessDom, Asian Chess Fed