Now Indian school kids know more than what a "Russian school boy" ever knew!
"Even a Russian School Boy would know this" had been a very famous quote in the past years. This statement was a testimonial to the tremendous chess culture that existed in Russia, formerly known as the Soviet Union. But things are changing now. Indian youngsters are becoming much stronger than their Russian counterparts. The perfect example of this was the White Rook inter-school chess tournament held in Sochi, Russia where 79 Russian school teams and 21 International teams participated. Indian team of Gukesh, Leon, Rakshitta and Savitha from Velammal Vidyalaya went to Sochi and simply crushed the competition by scoring 33.5 points out of a possible 36! Full report and game analysis.
Velammal Vidyalaya wins Belaya Ladya (also known as White Rook) International Final for the second year in a row
The 49th final tournament of the traditional all-Russian scholastic chess team event Belaya Ladya (also known as White Rook) finished in Dagomys (Sochi) on the 8th of June 2018. Since 2015, Belaya Ladya has welcomed teams from foreign countries. This year, 100 teams - 79 teams from different regions of Russia and 21 from Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldavia, Mongolia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, and Turkmenistan were taking part in the competition.
Like in the previous year, the team from India (Velammal Vidyalaya from Chennai) won the final tournament of Belaya Ladya. The Indian school children defeated all their rivals in 9 rounds to score 33.5 points out of a possible 36! The winners are entitled to participate in the Aeroflot Open 2019. The chess players from Yekaterinburg showed the best result among the Russian teams thus having repeated their success of the last year. The silver medalists scored 25.5 points. The representatives of Saint Petersburg took the third place with 24 points.
Final Rankings
Rk. | SNo | Team | Games | + | = | - | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | TB4 | TB5 |
1 | 1 | India | 9 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 18 | 0 | 190.0 | 0 |
2 | 2 | Sverdlovsk region | 9 | 6th | 1 | 2 | 25.5 | 13 | 0 | 202.0 | 0 |
3 | 5 | St. Petersburg | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 24.0 | 12 | 0 | 189.5 | 0 |
4 | 18 | Armenia | 9 | 7th | 0 | 2 | 22.5 | 14 | 0 | 188.5 | 0 |
5 | 4 | The Republic of Buryatia | 9 | 6th | 0 | 3 | 22.5 | 12 | 0 | 194.5 | 0 |
6th | 3 | Moscow | 9 | 7th | 0 | 2 | 22.0 | 14 | 0 | 200.5 | 0 |
7th | 13 | Nizhny Novgorod Region | 9 | 6th | 1 | 2 | 22.0 | 13 | 0 | 176.5 | 0 |
8 | 6th | Novosibirsk region | 9 | 6th | 1 | 2 | 21.5 | 13 | 0 | 175.0 | 0 |
9 | 55 | Republic of Belarus | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 21.5 | 12 | 0 | 188.0 | 0 |
10 | 15 | Republic of Bashkortostan | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 21.5 | 12 | 0 | 181.0 | 0 |
Performance by Indian players:
Bo. | Name | RtgI | RtgN | FED | FideID | ID | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Pts. | Games | RtgAvg | |
1 | CM | Gukesh D | 2431 | 0 | IND | 46616543 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9,0 | 9 | 1852 |
2 | CM | Mendonca Leon Luke | 2228 | 0 | IND | 35028561 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9,0 | 9 | 1723 |
3 | Rakshitta Ravi | 2067 | 0 | IND | 25073230 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8,5 | 9 | 1475 | |
4 | Savitha Shri B | 1721 | 0 | IND | 35061887 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 7,0 | 9 | 1518 |
One of Rakshitta's decision is worthy of deeper investigation:
Petrosian - Bannik
Petrosian played Bc5! Although the bishop on e7 is a bad bishop, it guards some very good squares like d8, d6, f6. And hence it made all the sense to exchange it.
A team from orphanages and boarding schools was participating in the final competition for the fourth year in a row. Children from the Boarding School №26 from Ryazan Oblast, who had won the Ascension tournament (Sochi, 2018), joined other participants in the Belaya Ladya finals. This was made possible by RCF programme aimed at providing chess education to the children growing without parents.
A two-time Russian champion, a three-time Olympic champion Alexander Morozevich, former European champion, coach of the Russian national women’s chess team Evgeniy Najer, and a three-time world champion in chess composition Oleg Pervakov gave lectures and master-classes to children. Coaches and pedagogues were invited to take part in a round table discussions held by the RCF Executive Director Mark Glukhovsky, Deputy Director General of Elena and Gennady Timchenko Foundation Igor Baradachev, and the Head of the Russian Universal Chess Education project Alexander Kostiev. In parallel with Belaya Ladya, the final competition of Chess in Schools project conducted by the Russian Chess Federation together with Elena and Gennady Timchenko Charitable Foundation was held. 9 teams from Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, and Pskov regions, Altai Krai, Krasnodar Krai, Zabaykalsky Krai, Chuvashia, Ingushetia, Udmurtia, and took part in it. For the second year in a row, the tournament was won by the Pskov region team.
A special thanks to Mr. VelMohan, the Velammal School Correspondent who has been instrumental for promoting all chess related activities and chess players in the school.