International tournaments continue in China

After the “World Cup Tournament & 8th Xingqiu Cup China Draughts Open”, in which Martijn Van Ijzendoorn had won, competitions at the international level continued with the participation of Russian athletes. Some of them, as well as Guntis Valneris, have been living and working in China for a long time by training promising draughts players.
We will complete our previous post about the World Cup with a summary of medals and two positions that aroused our interest.
According to the results of the tournament in the overall standings the top three looks like this:
Martijn Van Ijzendoorn
Wouter Sipma
Alexander Shvartsman
In the eighth round having carried out the ‘Closed Slingshot’ and ‘Weakening of the opponent’s flank’ plans and almost from the debut having gained a positional advantage, Martijn Van Ijzendoorn beat an experienced opponent in 30 moves. Here is the combinational ending of the game.
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Van Ijzendoorn, Martijn – Ndjofang, Jean Marc. Round 8
26 44-39 15-20 27 25×14 19×10 28 49-44 10-14 29 46-41 14-19 30 26-21 |
Only true grandees can win the last round by the skin of their teeth. Only a few succeed: Alexander Georgiev, Zoya Golubeva, Alexander Shvartsman, Alexander Getmansky…
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Shvartsman, Alexander – Motrichko, Viktoriia. Round 9
We were attracted by a small maneuver of piece ’46’ to ’36’. And the technical move 49-44. 27. 46-41 11-17 |
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Shvartsman, Alexander – Motrichko, Viktoriia. Round 9
31. 43-39 18-23 32. 40-35 9-14 (see the diagram). A very ‘simple’ position with a lot of ideas. Who would have thought that a simple move 14-20??? leads to defeat. And the previous move 9-14 was a mistake. A small, but a mistake. Next – the technique from Alexander Mikhailovich. 33. 48-43 14-20 |
And so… Now there is an international tournament with the participation of Russian athletes. Let’s take a look and maybe we’ll find something interesting again.