IA Tomasz Delega – Chief Arbiter of the Chess Tournament
“This competition is probably the first online team event, where countries from all over the world are playing together. It is a great experience and a chance for students to compete against their rivals from other parts of the World. Most chess players prefer ‘over the board tournaments’, the possibility to meet other players and travel but it is great that in these difficult times we have a chance to play online.
We are using chess platform Tornelo.com, which allows arbiters to be very much involved in all games and help participants. We are following normal, ‘over the board rules’. I am very happy that the event is running smoothly in a fair play atmosphere.”
CHESS
It was such an exciting day at the FISU World University Mind Sports Championship. Chess players have played 444 games in total. Some of them brought a lot of beautiful moves and mating combinations. With 3 rounds to go, few teams lost their chances to qualify to the TOP16 and play-offs but most of the participants still have their chances.
Xu (CHN) vs Eggink (POL) Black decided to activate its bishop from d8 to c7. Chinese player did not hesitate and sacrificed a rook for the bishop on d7. Black decided to give up the game, because after taking the rook with a queen, a very beautiful fork on f6 was coming and the queen would be lost.
Many local supporters are keeping their fingers crossed for all four Polish teams. And the good news is, all of them have a chance to qualify for the play-offs! With 3 rounds to go it is clear, to qualify you need to score 11-12 match points. Teams are ready, strategic plans for the last three rounds are prepared, let’s play the final rounds of the qualification stage!
Bridge
The second day and another five rounds of qualifications of the bridge competition are behind us. Currently at the top are teams from Italy, Poland, and France:
- Italy 1 – 148.52 VP
- Poland 3 – 146.53
- France – 130.77
Three teams from China are placed right behind the French team.
Best individual performance was shown today by:
- Jakub ANDRUSZKIEWICZ and Edward SUCHARDA (Poland 3)
- Gabriele GIUBILO and Gianmarco GIUBILO (Italy 1)
Here is the most interesting board of today: Australia and Russia – Prepared by Jakub Wojcieszek.
One more missed opportunity to shine was in the AUSTRALIA – RUSSIA match. One of the boards was very interesting from the technical point of view.
In the open room 3NT was reached and Maxim Tabatadze had no problem with taking 9 tricks after ♠8 lead. In the closed room North/South have landed in 5♣:
In my opinion 3NT instead of 5♣ would be better ‒ not bid immediately after 1♠ would be only proposition, not the decision and partner with short spades, or doubleton, could bid further. But if you bid poorly, you have to be prepared to declare tough contracts. Here declarer played with the odds. After heart lead, played three rounds of trumps and played a spade towards the king. Later tried a diamond to the 9, and finessing diamonds for the second time, to the jack. One down, as ♢KQ were placed badly…How declarer could make the contract? It appears that you can establish quite an advanced squeeze and endplay East in diamonds but you have to proceed very carefully. After 9 of hearts lead you take this trick in dummy, cash 3 rounds of clubs and play spade towards the K. East having AQJ109 in spades cannot let partner to take second spade trick to release diamonds, so it does not matter if he takes with A or duck first trick. (If he ducks you will play spade one more time). You cash one more trump discarding spade/or ruff spade if east play it, play ace of hearts, reaching this ending:
Now you cash king of hearts putting poor East into squeeze. If he decides to throw spade you ruff spade and play diamond to 9 and if he discards diamond, you can establish J of diamonds by playing A !d and low diamond still having the last trump in hand to ruff spade.
Tomorrow the last five rounds of qualifications will be played, after which the best 8 teams will be qualified to the Thursday’s quarter-finals.
