In Soviet times the USSR championship was the most closely watched national contest in the world. The grandmaster elite saw the event as a passport to sought after hard currency tournaments in the west and it sometimes acted as a zonal eliminator for the world title.
Its history and its participants have been chronicled in Soviet Chess 1917-1991 by Andrew Soltis, in Soviet Chess Championships by Bernard Cafferty and Mark Taimanov, and in Genna Sosonko’s Russian Silhouettes, personal stories of the top players by one who knew them well.
Nowadays the Russian championship has lost much of its allure. Its backdrop is the country’s chronically sub-par performance in the biennial world Olympiads, which its team has not won since 2002 despite being regular top seeds. The 2016 Russian superfinal, which ended in Novosibirsk on Thursday, lacked players from the world top 10, since Sergey Karjakin is preparing for his world title match in New York next month while the former champion Vlad Kramnik is rumoured to be helping Karjakin.
It was still a formidable contest with a first prize of one million roubles (around £13,000). Its winner was also awarded a Renault Kaptur car worth about the same amount, whose subliminal message was to highlight the world title candidates in Moscow earlier this year where Karjakin thought he had won a BMW but it turned out to be just a test drive.
All 12 GMs at Novosibirsk had ratings in the 2700s or 2600s and the tournament took a peculiar course. Until a combative final round the draw percentage was very high, around 75%, there was a seven-way tie for the lead with four rounds to go and the only player who got detached from the peloton was the local representative and the lowest ranked, Dmitry Bocharov. He was singled out as the fall guy whom everybody tried to beat and who lost five games. Bocharov’s 2611 rating would still make him top seed in many western opens. Peter Svidler has won the championship seven times., breaking Mikhail Botvinnik’s recprd six-timer in the Soviet era, but he is now one of the most popular online tournament commentators and has lost some of his playing edge. The other co-favourite, Alexander Grischuk, left his effort too late and had to settle for second. In their individual game, the pair opted for the once highly regarded but now overly drawish Ruy Lopez, Marshall Attack, and Grischuk produced a strange Na3 novelty, returning the Marshall gambit pawn (Bxa3 bxa3 Nxc3) to acquire the bishop pair.
The final leading scores were Alexander Riazantsev 7/11, Alexander Grischuk and Evgeny Tomashevsky 6.5, Svidler and Vladimir Fedoseev 6.
Riazantsev, the new champion, is 31. Until the final round it seemed he would scrape through with only two wins and the rest draws but then he scored impressively against the strong Dmitry Jakovenko while his co-leader, Fedoseev, played poorly. This result is the zenith of his career, as like many strong second-tier GMs he has missed out on the best tournament invitations.
Bocharov’s essential mistake in this quick defeat was to miss two decent opportunities to develop his problem c8 bishop, by 9...Bg4 or 13...Bf5. After that Riazantsev took control of the board and set up a winning tactic which features in this week’s puzzle.
Alexander Riazantsev v Dmitry Bocharov
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 e3 O-O 5 Bd3 d5 6 Nf3 c5 7 cxd5 exd5 8 dxc5 Bxc5 9 O-O Nc6? 10 h3 a6 11 b3 d4 12 exd4 Nxd4 13 Bb2 Ne6? 14 Ne4 Be7 15 Qc2 Nd5 16 Nc3 Nf6 17 Rad1 Qa5 18 Rfe1 Rd8 19 Re5 b5 20 Nd5! Nxd5 21 Bxh7+ Kf8 22 Rexd5 Rxd5 23 Rxd5 Bb7 24 Rf5 Rc8
3466 25 Rxf7+! Kxf7 26 Qg6+ Kf8 27 Qxe6 Bf6 28 Bg6 1-0.
