St. Petersburg and Midwest Chess Teams Vie for Honors

ANATOLY KARPOV INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF CHESS
106 South Main Street, Lindsborg, Kansas 67456
785-227-2224 – www.anatolykarpovchessschool.org

Release: Immediate

Contact: Irwin “Wes” Fisk – 785-342-1009 or email fisk@anatolykarpovchessschool.org

St. Petersburg and Midwest Chess Teams Vie for Honors

Last weekend, a team of young chess players from St. Petersburg, Russia came to Lindsborg and McPherson to compete with scholastic chess teams from throughout Kansas and Nebraska. The 2^nd Intercontinental Chess Team Championships got underway with a Blitz tournament at the Karpov Chess School in Lindsborg on Friday night. Blitz chess is a form of rapid-fire chess where each player has only five minutes to complete the game. Russian player, Sergey Sememoka, defeated his rivals to win first place in the Blitz event. Sememoka, who came with his brother Ilya to the tournament, is a high school freshman who plans to work in the medical field.

“I really like the team format of this tournament,” said Mikhail Korenman, president of International Education and Cultural Services (INTECS), co-organizer of the tournament. “It is good to see the team members supporting and helping one another.” The 1^st Intercontinental Chess Team Championships were played in Chicago.

The chess teams squared off on Saturday in McPherson. After the first round, teams from St. Petersburg, Lawrence, and Omaha were tied with wins. At the end of round two, only St. Petersburg and Omaha remained tied; however, Lawrence trailed by only a half point. The situation remained unchanged by the end of round three. St. Petersburg went into round five with a half point lead over Omaha and a full point lead over the Lawrence team. In this tournament, each team win counted as a point and each tie or draw counts as a half point.

Svetlana Tiahova, age 11 and the youngest member of the Russian team, was winning all of her games. She and her school team in St. Petersburg recently won the European Team Championships. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she were an Expert or Master by the time she is in high school,” said David Blair, coach of the Lawrence team.

The St. Petersburg team continued to win and at the end of round six, their closest rival was Lawrence who trailed by a point. This, however, changed in the final round when the Lawrence team defeated the St. Petersburg team. Both teams tied with a 6.0 score; however, St. Petersburg won the championship on tie-breaks. The Lawrence team fielded two-time Kansas State section champions Kaustubh Nimkar and Apramay Mishra, along with Eddie Wilson, and Sam Beaulieu. Nimkar didn’t lose a game, the only player to do so in the top section of eight teams.

The championships were also broken down by age categories. St. Petersburg won the under 16 category; Concordia under 18, Omaha Silver Knights under 14, Wichita Scholastic Chess Club under 12, and Omaha Green Knights under 10.

“I think we had a very successful tournament with international prestige,” said Marck R. Cobb, president of the International Chess Institute of the Midwest that owns and operates the Anatoly Karpov International School of Chess in Lindsborg, Kansas. “The parents of players were pleased that their young people could participate in this international event.” The Karpov Chess School was one of the co-organizers of the event.

In other Lindsborg chess news, the Karpov Chess School recently hosted the Kansas Girls’ Championship. Hannah Purdy, who is a member of the well-known Purdy Family Chess Team from Oxford, Kansas, won the event. The event is a qualifier for the Annual Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girl’s Championship, which is held each summer at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Girls from each state compete to determine who will represent their state at the Polgar Invitational. Ms. Purdy will represent Kansas.