By Ram Soffer

The two chess superpowers are conducting these days at Ningpo (some prefer to call it Ningbo) their fifth confrontation. The chess tournament is held separately on 5 men and 5 women boards, Scheveningen system in 3 categories: classical, rapid and blitz chess.

The classical time-limit chess games, which ended first (September 18-23), emphasized the new trend concerning the balance of forces between the countries in 2008. Formerly China may have been outstanding among the women and slightly backward in the men’s category. Not any more! In a direct follow-up of their excellence in tournaments (for instance, Wang-Yue’s meteoric rise to the world top ten chess players), and exploiting the absence of Kramnik and Morozevich from Russia’s lineup, the Chinese men won convincingly by 14.5:10.5, with Wang Hao scoring 3.5 ahead of Wang Yue and the youngest among the group, Li Chao 3. No Russian male player did better than 50%.

However, Russia had the upper hand in the women’s section, again in direct follow-up of Kosteniuk’s victory in the Women’s world Chess Championship (over Chinese Yifan Hou). Both were absent from this match, but the other Russians performed to the tune of 13.5:11.5, with Pogonina, Korbut and Nadiezhda Kosintseva scoring 3 out of 5. The outstanding player was the surprising Chinese Shen Yang with 4 out of 5, but her fellow team members did not follow suit.

Rapid Chess

Ten rounds of rapid chess were held between Sepemner 24-26, with the Russian men having their revenge, winning 28:22 individually and 13:7 in the team scoring, while the women’s rapid match was tied at 25:25.

More Chess News & Updates

• 56 leading Russian chess players, most of whom grandmasters, were engaged in the “Higher League of the Russian Championship”, a swiss event serving as a qualifier to the Russian super championship due to be held at the end of the year. And the winner was Artyom Timofeev with 8 out of 11, ahead of Vityugov and Inarkiev 7.5; Lastin, Sakaev, Kobalia, Riazantsev, Galkin, Maslak, Nayer and Grachev 7; etc.
• Hungary decided to hold their chess championship for 2008 according to the KO system, and the winner was the favorite Zoltan Almasi, who in the final beat Csaba Balogh by 2.5:1.5, while Robert Ruck defeated Gabor Kovacs in the 3^rd place playoff.