6 October 2023

Baira Kovanova and Leya Garifullina Head Russian Women's Superfinal

Vladislav Artemiev consolidated his lead in the Open section.

Thursday, October 5, Round 5 games of the Russian Championships Superfinals finished at Tsarskoe Selo State Museum and Heritage Site (Pushkin, Saint Petersburg). Celebrating his 75th birthday this day was Igor Bolotinsky – one of the tournament arbiters, an international arbiter and arbiter of the All-Russian category. Grandmasters and fellow arbiters approached Igor Bolotinsky to congratulate him on his birthday before the game. Alexander Tkachev, Executive Director of the Chess Federation of Russia, presented the hero of the day with a letter of thanks from the Chess Federation of Russia and a memorable gift. We wish Igor Bolotinsky good health, energy and all the best!

The symbolic first move in the Maxim Matlakov vs. Andrey Esipenko game was made by Arbi Abubakarov, deputy chairman of the St. Petersburg Committee for External Relations. The St. Petersburg Committee for Foreign Affairs is a partner of the Superfinal of the 2023 Russian Championship. Among other things, the Committee supported the exhibition "Chess Museum. St. Petersburg", which was organised in the Smolny Museum before the tournament.

Open section:

Sychev – Ponkratov 1/2
Rozum – Tomashevsky 1/2
Lagno – Artemiev 0:1
Murzin – Goryachkina 1/2
Timofeev – Najer 1/2
Matlakov – Esipenko 1/2

Vladislav Artemiev, "For today's game I decided to prepare something not very trendy, because I think Kateryna is very well prepared in the opening. Her round one game against Maxim Matlakov is a vivid demonstration of this. I just wanted to get a fighting position out of the opening, even if it was a little worse for me. In retrospect I can say that the opening worked well for me, I managed to win the a2-pawn. I thought that Kateryna had blundered this pawn, but in the post-mortem Katya said that she had sacrificed it on purpose. I was not expecting it because I thought I had a comfortable advantage with the extra pawn. The resulting position is typical of the Caro-Kann Defence, in which Black has neither weaknesses nor bad pieces.

I think 9.cxd4 is stronger for White, with a very complex game to follow. I think it's easier to play as Black after 9.Nxd4. On move 15 White could have exchanged queens. I don't think Black is taking any risks there, but you could claim the same about White. We've looked into this position now – the computer gives a slight advantage to White at a shallow depth, but objectively I think the endgame is about equal. Also, Kateryna could have played 15.Qc2 without giving up the a2-pawn. My opponent said that she spotted this move but decided to come up with something sharper. I understood that Kateryna counted to launch an attack, since I had the king in the center and the weak f7-square. This is an intuitive sacrifice, but obviously not a very correct one.

Black castled on move 26, which is rather late. Before that I checked if my king and rook had ever moved. If castling had been impossible, I would have had to move my king, and it was clearly disadvantageous in that position. But no, neither piece had moved before".

Standings after Round 5:

1. Vladislav Artemiev – 4.5 points
2. Evgeniy Najer – 3.5
3. Aleksandra Goryachkina – 3
4-8. Artyom Timofeev, Maxim Matlakov, Pavel Ponkratov, Andrey Esipenko, Evgeny Tomashevsky – 2.5
9. Volodar Murzin – 2
10-12. Кlementy Sychev, Kateryna Lagno, Ivan Rozum – 1.5 each.

Round 6 pairings:

Ponkratov – Esipenko, Najer – Matlakov, Goryachkina – Timofeev, Artemiev – Murzin, Tomashevsky – Lagno, Sychev – Rozum.

Women’s section:

Matveeva – Gunina 1/2
Pogonina – Garifullina 1/2
Korneva – Goltseva 1:0
Yakimova – Badelka 0:1
Kovanova – Shukhman 1:0
Shuvalova – Bivol 1:0

Baira Kovanova: "My opponent surprised me with her opening choice: she is known to play Paulsen, but not this trendy line. In general, she is not known to be a fan of new trendy lines, but today she opted for the principled continuation. It's hard for me to say until what point I was in my opening book, but apparently Anna didn't know everything either. I think she just got her plans wrong; her central pawns were blocked and moving nowhere. It's hard to evaluate the position, it's a bit crazy; but I think 21.Qh5+ puts Black in a very dangerous position".

Olga Badelka: "I prepared very well and I had the position at home after 14 moves. When she played 15.Nf1 I was happy, because 15.Nb1 is a stronger move. However, I immediately came back with an inaccurate move and allowed my opponent to exchange my knight, which was heading for b3. I took a closer look into the position and realised that White had a simple plan of attack, whereas I didn't understand what to do at all. And my thought was: what a mediocre player I am!

I played 20...f6 out of desperation, hoping that I could throw in some complications somehow. After all, I have to open up the game for two bishops. Surely she could have reacted stronger, I really didn't like my position. How could I have arrived at that position in the first place? And then I consolidated my position and started to slowly outplay White. I realized that I couldn't perform reliably today, so I decided to increase the activity of my pieces as best I could. I sacrificed the pawn with 33...g6 to temporarily keep the white knight out of the game. When we made the time control move, it was clear that my idea had worked: all my pieces were active and she had everything hanging. Yakimova made an immediate blunder, the move 41.Ra1? is a forced loss, but the advantage was already on Black's side anyway".

Polina Shuvalova: "I got almost nothing out of the opening; it seemed to me that I was even worse somewhere. This 'nothing' lasted 40 moves, at which point I somehow managed to reroute the knight to a6 and capture the c7-pawn. However, Alina made her queen active and got counterplay; I had to calculate many short tactical lines. Surely Black could have played stronger; and when she gave up the c6-pawn her position became hopeless. Then it was a question of technique, which took yet another hour to convert".

Standings after Round 5:

1-2. Baira Kovanova, Leya Garifullina – 4,5 points
3. Olga Badelka – 4
4-7. Polina Shuvalova, Alina Bivol, Anna Shukhman, Marina Korneva – 2.5
8. Valentina Gunina – 2
9-10. Natalija Pogonina, Ekaterina Goltseva – 1.5
11-12. Mariya Yakimova, Olga Matveeva – 1.

Round 6 pairings:

Gunina – Bivol, Shukhman – Shuvalova, Badelka – Kovanova, Goltseva – Yakimova, Garifullina – Korneva, Matveeva – Pogonina.

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