1 July 2015
Higher League Round 8 Results
Marina Guseva leads the women's event with one round to go.
Marina Guseva leads the women's event with one round to go
Men's tournament
The young trio Vladislav Artemiev (2660), Ivan Bukavshin (2647), and Sanan Sjugirov (2662) made a strong claim of the Superfinal spots by winning their 8th round games against Mikhail Kobalia (2623), Ivan Popov (2647), and Dmitry Frolyanov (2566) respectively. The leader Alexander Motylev (2643) made a draw as White against Daniil Dubov (2661) and was caught by Artemiev and Bukavshin.
Artemiev and Motylev are playing against each other in the last round, and a very likely draw basically secures Superfinal tickets for both of them. As for other three spots, there are at least 13 players who have theoretical chances of qualifying for the most important tournament of Russian chess calendar.
Standings after 8 rounds
Bukavshin, Artemiev, Motylev 6
Khairullin, Dubov, Zvjaginsev, Sjugirov 5.5
Kobalia, Fedoseev, Popov, Frolyanov, Riazantsev, Gordievsky, Predke, Najer 5
Women's tournament
Marina Guseva (2410) won as Black against Alina Balaian (2261) and took a sole lead in the event. The only draw on the top 11 boards occurred between Svetlana Matveeva (2366) and Anastasia Savina (2422) on the first board. There are good chances that the last round will also be very uncompromising - only Bodnaruk-Guseva might end without much fight as both players are content with a draw. Five top players from the women's tournament qualify for the Superfinal.
Standings after 8 rounds
Guseva 6.5
Savina, Kashlinskaya, Bodnaruk 6
Matveeva, Gritsaeva 5.5
Drogovoz, Ovod, Kovalevskaya, Belenkaya, Balaian 5
