Chess - The Scotsman 13/04/2012

THE world’s two strongest leagues, the German Bundesliga and the Russian team championship, are on a different plane. The former is episodic with matches over a series of weekends while in Russia the travel involved means they do it in one fell swoop. Both finish their seasons over this weekend.

Baden-Baden, the league champions, led by world champion Vishy Anand, have dominated all season in the Bundesliga, conceding only one draw. They take a big advantage into the final weekend, having beaten their closest rivals, Werder Bremen, in the penultimate round.

Meanwhile, last Sunday, the 12th Russian Team Championship got underway in Sochi and will run through to its conclusion on Monday. There’s a veritable galaxy of stars out in force for their relevant teams, with the two top seeds being SHSM-64 of Moscow and Economist-SGSEU from Saratov with average ratings of 2700+.

The SHSM-64 (2708) line-up includes Fabiano Caruana, Wang Hao, Peter Leko, Anish Giri, Alexander Riazantsev, Boris Grachev, Vladimir Potkin and Evgeny Najer; Economist-SGSEU (2705) with Alexander Morozevich, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexander Moiseenko, Pavel Eljanov, Dmitry Andreikin, Evgeny Alekseev and Michael Roiz. The big opening round upset saw Morozevich blundering at the end of a dramatic time scramble, as he lost unexpectedly to Ivan Popov. But the world No 9 soon bounced back in round two, as he destroyed the newly-crowned European champion Dmitry Jakovenko.

A Morozevich - D Jakovenko

Russian Team Ch., (2)

Slav Defence, Geller Gambit

1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 dxc4 5 a4 e6 6 e4 Bb4 7 e5 Nd5 8 Bd2 b5 9 axb5 Bxc3 10 bxc3 cxb5 11 Ng5 Nc6 12 Qh5 Qe7 13 h4 b4 14 Bxc4 bxc3 15 Bc1 Nxd4 16 0–0 h6 17 Bxd5 exd5 18 Ba3 Qc7 19 e6! Bxe6 20 Nxe6 Nxe6 21 Qxd5 Rd8 22 Qb3 h5 23 Rfe1 Rh6 24 Qb4 Kd7 25 Rac1 Rb8 26 Qa4+ Kc8 27 Bb4 1–0