Nutcracker Tournament Opened in Moscow

First round will played on March 4.

The opening ceremony of the Nutcracker international team tournament took place in one of the Georgian restaurants of Moscow on March 3. CFR Executive Director Mark Glukhovsky gave a short speech in which recalled the history of the tournament, which had been initially held as a match between Alexei Shirov and Daniil Dubov in 2013 and supported by the Chess Federation of Russia and Oleg Skvortsov, Russian entrepreneur and philanthropist. 

Then the tournament took its present form and usually was held before New Year festivities. Last year, it wasn't possible to organize it in December due to a tough tournament schedule and it was moved to March under the same name. The Kings team consists of Evgeny Tomashevsky (Russia), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Alexei Shirov (Latvia), Evgeniy Najer (Russia), while Alexey Sarana, Andrey Esipenko, Daniil Yuffa, Semyon Lomasov (all from Russia) will play for the Princes.

Chief arbiter IA Dmitry Shakhov conducted the drawing of lots. The players got the following starting numbers: 

Kings: 1. Evgeniy Najer, 2. Alexei Shirov, 3. Evgeny Tomashevsky, 4. Boris Gelfand.

Princes: 1. Alexey Sarana, 2. Andrey Esipenko, 3. Daniil Yuffa, 4. Semyon Lomasov.

The following games will be played in Round 1 on March 4:

Najer - Sarana, Shirov - Esipenko, Yuffa - Tomashevsky, Lomasov - Gelfand. 

GM Sergey Shipov will commentate on the games in Russian, while GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko will work for the English-speaking audience.

The organizers are Chess Federation of Russia and the Ladya Foundation for supporting social, educational, innovative and sports projects. 

The event is held in accordance with the FIDE rules in two disciplines: classical chess (March 4-7) and rapid chess (March 8-9).  

Standard chess: players are awarded 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a lost game. Rapid chess: players get 1 point for a win, 0.5 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.

Tournament page

Text by Vladimir Barsky, photos by Eteri Kublashvili