Armenian celebration
By Malcolm Pein
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
May 29, 2004, Saturday
A CELEBRATION is planned in Moscow from June 10-16 to celebrate the
75th anniversary of the birth of the late Armenian world champion
Tigran Petrosian.
The “Armenia v Rest of the World” six-player team tournament will see
each player face all members of the opposing team.
The Armenian team will consist of three Armenians; Vladimir Akopian,
Smbat Lputian and Rafael Vaganian and three players with Armenian
connections; Garry Kasparov, whose mother is Armenian, world title
challenger Peter Leko, whose wife is Armenian, and Boris Gelfand, who
studied under Tigran Petrosian.
The Rest of the World team is likely to include Vishy Anand, Michael
Adams, Peter Svidler and Loek Van Wely.
Players from China and Georgia, countries traditionally dominant in
women’s chess, have claimed four of the eight places in the
quarter-finals of the Fide Women’s World Championship at Elista.
Alexandra Kosteniuk, the vice-world champion and European individual
champion, was surprisingly eliminated by Viktoria Cmilyte.
A swift win from one of the two Russian championship qualifiers
taking place in Saint Petersburg. Black seems to stand well but there
are hidden threats; 19…Bxa4 20.Qh6 g6 21.Rh3 wins and 21…Nxc4
22.Bxc4 Qe7 23.Rdg1 g6 24.Rxg6+ hxg6 25.Rxg6+ and Qh6 mate. In the
final position 24…Kxg7 25.Qg5+ followed by Qf6+ and Rg1+ mates.
E Najer – S Ionov
57th Russian Ch Qualifier
St Petersburg (5)
Sicilian Defence
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nc6 5 Nc3 d6 6 Be3 Nf6 7 Qe2 Be7 8
0-0-0 0-0 9 g4 a6 10 g5 Nxd4 11 Bxd4 Nd7 12 f4 b5 13 Rg1 b4 14 Na4
Bb7 15 b3 Bc6 16 Rg3 e5 17 fxe5 Bxg5+ 18 Be3 Bxe3+ 19 Qxe3 Nxe5 20
Nb6 Ra7 21 Nc4 Rd7 22 Bh3 Nxc4 23 bxc4 Re7 24 Rxg7+ 1-0
Ionov
p g 7 ) p p p 7 c 6 c c p – o p p p p p p
o b p b p p p p f p A b p b p p n p d * p p
Najer
Final position after 24.Rxg7+