The team of Ashdod won its seventh national championship title last weekend. Ashdod drew its first-round match against Kfar Saba A, but then won all 10 remaining matches, including the match against its main rival for the crown - Beer Sheva A. Ashdod won 4.5: 2.5 (one bonus point is added for the team victory) and did not let the lead slip away till the end of the season.

The champion team consists mostly of the local GMs Emil Sutovsky, Ilya Smirin, Arthur Kogan, Vitaly Golod, Boris Kantsler, IM Roman Bar and the occasional foreign reinforcement composed of Ukrainian GMs Pavel Eljanov & Alexander Moiseenko, Latvian Igor Kovalenko and German Daniel Friedman.

Beer-Sheva’s team composition included the local GMs Maxim Rodshtein, Evgeny Postny, Michael Roiz, Alex Khuzman, Victor Mikhalevsky and Alon Greenfeld and the foreign reinforcement: the Azeri Arkady Najditch, Ukrainian Anton Korobov and Russian Vladimir Malakhov. Bronze medal went to Kfar Saba team (on 51.5 points) led by GMs Tamir Nabaty, Avital Boruchovsky and Eduard Rozentalis.

Fourth was Rishon Letzion (led by GM Boris Alterman) 44 points, ahead of the youngest team Zafrir Rechovot (reinforced by former Soviet and Israeli champion GM Lev Psakhis) in the respectable fifth place on 38 points.

Grandmaster Emil Sutovsky, in spite of his busy schedule as FIDE Director General, became the best player of the season. He scored 9.5/11 undefeated.

RESULTS

Photos by Dr. Mark Livshitz