The games of the seventh round of the Asian Cities Chess Team Championship were played at the Ugra Chess Academy.
The Surgut team continues to gain points: this time the experienced team won against the junior team of Khanty-Mansiysk with a score of 3.5:0.5. Dinis Sattarov was close to defeating Aleksei Pridorozhni, but in time trouble, he was unable to break the grandmaster’s tough resistance.
In the Iranian derby, the Tehran men’s team defeated the women’s team with a clean score.
The Moscow team lost to chess players from Colombo (Sri Lanka) with a minimal score. Stanislav Khudyakov won on the first board, but G. Thilakarathne and R. Liyanage distinguished themselves on the second and third boards.
Tula chess players beat Penang (Malaysia) 3.5:0.5, the team of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia) beat Muscat (Oman) with a score of 3:1, and the team of Baghdad (Iraq) defeated Al Mahra with the same score (Yemen).
Charikot (Nepal) beat Al Quds (Palestine) with a score of 2.5:1.5. Quite quickly on the first board, Purushottam Chaulagain finished the game, defeating Ahmad Allazah with the black pieces, and spoke about his game:
– I knew that he would play 1. e4, and decided to go for the Sicilian Defense. But he preferred to play 2. d3, which was not the best opening. Nevertheless, White began an attack on the kingside, pushing f4 and g4, but I was ready for this. I think he made a mistake by playing f5 too early. This allowed me to take e5 with the queen. I was a pawn up and gradually managed to convert it I.
The Pavlodar (Kazakhstan) team had a ‘bye’.
The Surgut team retains its sole leadership two rounds before the finish: the “home team” has scored 14 match points. The Tehran men’s team is 2 points behind. The chess players from Colombo have 10 match points.
Round 8 pairings:
Sukhbaatar – Surgut
Khanty-Mansiysk – Tehran (men)
Tula – Colombo
Tehran (women) – Baghdad
Moscow – Charikot
Muscat – Pavlodar
Al Quds – Al Mahra
Penang – ‘bye’