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Chess Niggemann

Russian Team Championships 2008 in Sochi
06.04.2008 – The yearly event in Dagomys, a health resort just 18 kms from the center of Sochi, on the shores of the Black Sea, has once again attracted a galaxy of very strong players: over 90 grandmasters, 61 of them over 2600, 16 over 2700. Coverage on the official web page is purely in Russian, but with a little help from our Cyrillic translation tables you should be able to navigate the site. First report.

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Try and picture an event where all of the following hold true:

• All but three of the 94 participants are grandmasters (the three are strong IMs);
• 61 of these grandmasters are rated higher than 2600; 16 are 2700 or higher;
• Number 62 in the list according to playing strength is Viktor Korchnoi;
• Anatoly Karpov is number 35 on the list;
• Karpov and Korchnoi are playing in the same team.

A hint: the event is being played at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, actually in the district of Dagomys, which is 18 km from the city centre and is noted for its botanical garden as well as tea plantations and factories.

Sochi is very close to the Russian border with Georgia. It is famous for its spectacular scenery, with the snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus Mountains overlooking the gentle shores of the Black Sea. The resort has a temperate climate and boasts many sanatoria and mineral baths.

To put things in perspective here is the location of Sochi on a map of Russia. Yes, it is BIG!

Russian Team Championships 2008 in Sochi

The Russian Team Championships 2008 are taking place in Dagomys, Sochi, from April 1st-14th, 2008. For your enjoyment we have put together a list of all participants sorted according to their ratings (January list).

And here are the teams.The list gives you a chance to learn to read these names in Cyrillic. Many of us will remember the days of the famed Kapmob-Kacmapob matches, when we first learned to decipher these characters. This is especially useful if you want to follow the results of the Russian Team Championship on the official web site, which is monolinguistically in Russian (the English site has not started with coverage).

You can follow the results on the official Russian web site (with the help of our "translation tables" above). All games are being broadcast live on Playchess.com.

Standings after four rounds

Rnk	Team	Pts	B.-pts
1	Ural Yekaterinburg	8	16.5
2-3	Economist-SGSEU-1 Saratov	6	14.0
2-3	Shatar Buryatia	6	13.0
4-5	Finek St. Petersburg	5	12.5
4-5	64 Moscow	5	12.5
6-8	ShSM Moscow	4	12.5
6-8	TPS Saransk	4	12.0
6-8	Spasio Moscow	4	11.5
9-10	Polytechnik Nizhny Tagil	3	11.0
9-10	Economist-SGSEU-2 Saratov	3	10.0
11-12	Southern Ural Chelyabinsk	0	9.5
11-12	Tomsk 400	0	9.0

Links Official Russian Team Championship web site (in Russian) Russian Team Championships in Sochi (2007 report) Tomsk leads in the Russian Team Championships (2007 report) Russian Club Championships (2006 report) Click to download all available games in zipped PGN You can use ChessBase Light to read, replay and analyse the PGN games. It also gives you immediate access to play and watch events on Playchess.com server.