England Grabs Silver At World Team Chess Championship

England today defeated Sweden at the World Team Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan to claim the silver medals ahead of China and behind Russia, who had already secured gold on Wednesday.

China, already sure of gold as well, also won its last match in the women's section and finished ahead of Russia and Georgia.

Open section:

With the gold medals already firmly in Russia's pockets, today's fight was about which team would be best of the rest. That became England.

The team, which qualified by virtue of its excellent fifth place at the 2018 Batumi Olympiad, scored one of its best ever achievements at team events, more than a generation after winning three silver medals at Olympiads in the 1980s. Back in the day, the star team included e.g. Nigel Short, Tony Miles, John Nunn, Jon Speelman and Murray Chandler, and finished right behind the untouchable Soviet Union in 1984, 1986 and 1988 and won bronze in 1990.

The victory at the 1997 European Team Championship should be mentioned as well. (Adams and Speelman were part of that team!) Now, 22 years later, there's another success. And it came with a narrow team: Except for the one game where Speelman substituted, England played with the same four players: Michael Adams, Luke McShane, David Howell and Gawain Jones.

Three of them won individual board medals: gold on board two for McShane, bronze for Howell on board three and silver for Jones on board four.

"This was an amazing team performance, only made possible by invaluable support from the Scheinberg family. [The family, former owners of Pokerstars, also supports the annual Isle of Man tournament. - PD] All chess players in England can be justifiably proud of our national team today," said team captain Malcolm Pein.

"We showed in Astana that although our teams do not receive the official and financial backing of many of our rivals, our resilience and team spirit are second to none. I'm looking forward to our next outing at the European Team Championships this October," Pein said.

Crucial for England's success were the tied matches with Russia, USA and India, and of course their convincing win against Sweden in the final round.

Michael Adams was the only player in the team who underperformed, but in the final round he actually played his best game. Like in his best days, he used the smallest positional edge (control of the d-file, combined with a passed c-pawn) to slowly outplay Nils Grandelius.

The Englishmen needed that win, as China was expected to win its match against Kazakhstan as well. China did, and so its disappointing tournament still yielded the team bronze.

Drawing on three boards was excellent for the local team, but Anuar Ismagambetov didn't stand a chance against Yu Yangyi. White's 8.axb4 led to an irregular pawn structure, especially for a Nimzo-Indian, and the Kazakh player failed to handle it correctly.

Already champion, Russia ended its tournament with another win. There was just one winner in their match against India.

In one of the longest games of the round, Alexander Grischuk patiently maneuvered a pawn-up position with rooks and opposite-colored bishops to a win. One can hardly blame S.P. Sethuraman for stumbling there. It ain't fun defending this kind of position!

At some point, Sethuraman actually offered a draw. At the post-tournament press conference Grischuk said he had three reasons to play for a win.

First, a funny one: Karjakin told him the day before that if the team won with 2.5 points on boards 2-4, it meant Russia would have taken gold even if Sergey lost all his games! Second, in all previous rounds, Grischuk played really cautiously since he was almost always Black and holding his board.

Sethuraman gave him a third reason when he offered a draw in a worse position. Grischuk said this was "an insult to chess."

At the press conference, Russia's coach Alexander Motylev said he was very happy but also exhausted: "A coach usually is worried twice!"

Asked who is their leader, now that Vladimir Kramnik has retired, Grischuk replied: 

"We had Chuck Norris in the team. Vlad Artemiev, he was like Chuck Norris! Maybe you cannot call him the leader yet, but he has the potential to be the leader."

And indeed, with 6.5/8 Artemiev was Russia's MVP. (Fun fact: Artemiev also happens to be half-Kazakh. His father was born in Shchuchinsk, about 200 km northwest of Astana.)

India ended on 11 match-points, tied with team USA, which beat Iran on the final day. The top three boards all ended in favor of the Americans.

This match was not without a small incident.

Fun fact: hotel transportation schedule stated that the Iranian team has a flight at 5 PM local time (11AM GMT). Confirmed by Ivan Sokolov. This means they have to finish their match vs USA in less than two(!!) hours! Well, time to practice some #SpeedChess #JSCC #WTCC2019 pic.twitter.com/BO1zp0VEFx

— MissLovaLova (@photochess) March 14, 2019

This early flight, booked by the Iranian Chess Federation, was because initially the final round was scheduled for 11 a.m. which was later postponed by an hour after complaints from players.

Amin Tabatabaei and Parham Maghsoodloo finished their games (and lost) basically when the flight took off. One player made it: Alireza Firouzja, after winning his game!

He finished a fantastic tournament with a win against Aleksandr Lenderman. The young Iranian showed that he's not only a great blitz player, finishing on 7/9. Just one other player in the open section reached this score: Surya Ganguly of India.

World Teams (Open) | Final standings

It's been an honour representing England at the World Team Championships here in Kazakhstan. Silver medallists! 🥈

— David Howell (@DavidHowellGM) March 14, 2019

Wonderful result today defeating Sweden 3.5-0.5 and congratulations to the whole England team on winning silver medals at the World Team Chess Chess Championships in Astana #wtcc2019 @ecfchess @tSHandJ

— Malcolm Pein (@TelegraphChess) March 14, 2019

England's best ever result in the World Teams, we had a couple of Bronze Medals in the 1980s. Ranks alongside our very best team results - a win in the European Teams in 1997 and our three silver medals and a bronze run 1984-90 in the Olympiad.

— Mark Crowther (@MarkTWIC) March 14, 2019

A great pity that France declined. You certainly deserved the spot a lot more than we did!

— Nils Grandelius (@GMGrandelius) March 14, 2019

It is an absolute delight to win an individual Gold at World Team 2019. Playing for our country gives us an extra motivation. Scored 7.0/9, won 5 matches and drew 4.

A big congratulations to 'The Beast' for also winning an individual Gold#gold #teamindia🇮🇳 #WTCC2019 #chess pic.twitter.com/zbsEYQssoC

— Surya Sekhar Ganguly (@suryachess64) March 14, 2019

Congratulations! You played really well.

— Vidit Gujrathi (@viditchess) March 15, 2019

Great team performance in Astana at #WTCC2019 as England get silver! Luke with a fantastic gold individual medal on board 2, David a bronze on 3 and I managed a second silver on 4. Evidently medals trigger security but staff at Frankfurt seemed impressed.

— Gawain Jones (@GMGawain) March 15, 2019

2 for the price of 1! #TeamEngland #WorldTeamChampionship #WTCC2019 #handluggage pic.twitter.com/SyKZ6Hpn8D

— David Howell (@DavidHowellGM) March 14, 2019

Women's section:

China also won its ninth and final match to make its tournament truly perfect. Ukraine wasn't exactly a weak opponent, but still got crushed 3.5-0.5. Now that's what you call a dominating performance.

WGM Ding Yixin won a nice game against IM Inna Gaponenko, constantly working with little threats towards the opponent's queen and king.

As a result, Ukraine just missed out on medals. It tied with Georgia in third place, but scored 2.5 board points less. Russia took silver after a tie with Georgia.

After the closing ceremony, the Russian team briefly got together in front of Kosteniuk's webcam. The "Chess Queen" is a regular streamer, and gave players the chance to chat and show their medals to the world. 

Appropriately Aleksandra Goryachkina, who scored a stunning 8/9, was placed in the middle! 

World Teams (Women) | Final standings

Previous reports:

• Russia, China Win World Team Chess Championships
• Russia Still Leads, Chased By England At World Team Chess Championship
• China Beats Russia At Women's World Team Chess Championshi
• World Team Chess Championship: Englands Ties With Russia
• World Team Chess Championship: Russia Beats China; Lei Tingjie 'Sacs' Queen
• USA Upsets China At World Team Chess Championship
• Big Wins For China, India At World Team Championship Opener