18 December 2015
Nutcracker Tournament Begins in Moscow
The opening ceremony takes place on December 19.
The Christmas generation tournament Nutcracker takes place on December 19-26 in Vladimir Dvorkovich Chess Saloon. This year it will include two Scheveningen matches – Kings vs Princes, and Girls vs Boys.
Team Kings: World Vice-Champion Boris Gelfand (Israel), World Vice-Champion Peter Leko (Hungary), European Champion Evgeny Najer (Russia), two-time Russian Champion Alexander Morozevich (Russia).
Team Princes: Russian higher league winner Vladislav Artemiev, Russian Cup winner Ivan Bukavshin, World U20 Champion Mikhail Antipov, and Russian Junior Champion Grigory Oparin.
The format is a double round Scheveningen, the first half being played with a classical time control, and the second one – with a rapid time control.
The junior tournament between 16-17-year-old girls and 11-12-year-old boys will be played under the same formula.
Team Girls: Dinara Dordzhieva (Kalmyk Republic), Margarita Potapova (Crimea), Alexandra Dimitrova (Kostroma Region), Olga Mylnikova (Nizhny Novgorod Region).
Team Boys: Dmitry Tsoy (Moscow), Kirill Shubin (St. Petersburg), Arseniy Nesterov (Novgorod Region), Yaroslav Remizov (Chelyabinsk Region).
The classical chess part is played on December 20-23, the rapid chess part takes place on December 24-25.
The event is organized by Russian Chess Federation, Fund of Chess Art Support, and businessman Oleg Skvortsov, who also runs traditional Zurich Chess Challenge tournament.
In an interview to Vladimir Barsky, Oleg Skvortsov announced that special prizes – tickets to the Nutcracker ballet in the Bolshoi Theater – for the most beautiful games will be awarded.
The first Nutcracker generation tournament took place in December 2014, and Kings defeated Princes with the narrowest of margins, 32.5-31.5.
