Chess - The Scotsman 09/07/12

By John Henderson
Published on 09/07/2012 00:00

IN his book Chinese School of Chess the national coach Liu Wenzhe predicted that China would dominate the chess world within 20 years. Back in 1978 at China’s Olympiad debut the Dutch GM Jan Hein Donner said: “How could anybody lose to a Chinaman?”

Prophetic – if not fateful – words by Donner, because a few days later he lost in a stunning 20-move queen sacrifice to Liu Wenzhe, whose forecast in his book of a few years ago now looks conservative. China has succeeded by the same policy used by the USSR: a massive state investment in the game, in particular targeting it towards talented youths.

China is intent on displacing Russia as the dominant powerhouse of the game and created its own state-run chess-training program about two decades ago, under Liu Wenzhe. China has already narrowed the gap, finishing ahead of Russia in some team competitions and producing several women’s world champions.

One measure of China’s progress is its annual summit match with Russia. The eighth in the series is taking place in St Petersburg, pitting separate teams of five men and five women against one another over 15 rounds: five classical games and then a double round rapidplay. With one round to go in the classical chess, overall the match is tied. Russia leads China in the Men’s and China leads Russia in the women’s by the same scores of 11.5-8.5.

D Jakovenko - Li Chao

Russia-China Summit, (4)

Grünfeld Defence

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 4 Nf3 Bg7 5 Qb3 dxc4 6 Qxc4 0–0 7 e4 b6 8 e5 Be6 9 exf6 Bxc4 10 fxg7 Kxg7 11 Bxc4 c6 12 0–0 Nd7 13 Bf4 Nf6 14 Rad1 Qc8 15 Rfe1 Qb7 16 d5 cxd5 17 Nxd5 Rad8 18 Be5 Rd7 19 Bc3 Rfd8 20 Rxe7! Rxe7 21 Bxf6+ Kf8 22 Ng5 Rd6 23 Nxh7+ Ke8 24 h4 b5 25 Bxe7 Qxe7 26 Bxb5+ Kd8 27 Ng5 Qb7 28 Bc4 f5 29 b3 Kc8 30 Nh3 Qg7 31 a4 f4 32 Nhxf4 g5 33 hxg5 Qxg5 34 Rd3 Qe5 35 Re3 Qd4 36 Re8+ Kb7 37 Re7+ Kb8 38 Rh7 a5 39 g3 Qb2 40 Kg2 Qd4 41 Re7 Rh6 42 Nc7 Qc5 43 Re6 1–0