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Bu Xiangzhi and Humpy Koneru took the lead in IMSA World Master Blitz Championships |
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Saturday, 18 May 2019 08:15 |
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IMSA World Masters Championship in blitz started on May 17. After 12 rounds Bu Xiangzhi from China and Humpy Koneru from India are the sole leaders in open and women sections respectively.
Bu Xiangzhi beat Boris Gelfand twice in first 2 rounds
Local hero Bu Xiangzhi scored 8 out of 12 and showed an impressive 2845 performance. He won two mini-matches against Boris Gelfand from Israel and Gawain Jones from England with the perfect score but lost 2:0 to his nearest rival Richard Rapport from Hungary, who has 7,5 points after 12 games. Dmitry Andreikin (Russia), Anton Korobov (Ukraine), Vidit Santosh (India) and Peter Leko (Hungary) share the third place with 7/12.
Richard Rapport collected 1.5 points from Dmitry Andreikin
RANKING after 12 Rounds OPEN BLITZ
 Koneru Humpy on hot streak In women's section, Indian GM Koneru Humpy is on the top of the ranking table with 8.5/12. She started the day one by defeating Elisabeth Paehtz from Germany and Zhao Xue from China with 2:0 score. In the next rounds she won one more mini-match against Nana Dzagnidze from Georgia and drew against Russian Alexandra Kosteniuk, Chinese Tan Zhongyi and Lei Tingjie. The second place is occupied by Tan Zhongyi, who is just half a point behind the leader. Russian Valentina Gunina is on the third place with 7,5 points and will begin her second day of blitz with the match against Humpy Koneru.  Tan Zhongyi on 2nd place  Gunina on 3rd place RANKING after 12 Rounds WOMEN BLITZ The remaining 10 rounds of blitz game will be played on 18th of May.
IMSA World Masters Rapid chess championship lasted for three days and consisted of 11 rounds at a time control of 15 minutes for all moves with a 10-second increment from move 1.  Anton Korobov had a good start in rapid and emerged as a sole leader one point ahead of the field after 8 rounds. After drawing with Boris Gelfand in round 9, he clinched the gold medal with a round to spare by beating Dmitry Andreikin in round 10. In the last round, he drew with Bu Xiangzhi from China and won the tournament one and half point ahead of former world blitz champions Le Quang Liem from Vietnam and Leinier Dominguez from USA (both scored 7/11). Le got silver medal by superior direct-encounter result and Dominguez got bronze medal.  FINAL RANKING OPEN RAPID Former Women`s World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk from Russia won the gold medal with a round to spare by beating her compatriot Anastasia Bodnaruk and Irina Krush from the USA in round 9 and 10. In the final round, she made a draw with Antoaneta Stefanova and finished the tournament one point ahead of the nearest rival. Another Russian player Valentina Gunina took silver medal with 7/11, while Maria Muzychuk from Ukraine tied for the third place with Tan Zhongyi from China but had better tie-break and took bronze medal. FINAL RANKING WOMEN RAPID
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