Brics Chess Masters 2017: Leitao and Fier in China

1st Brics Chess Masters 2017: Leitão and Fier in China

Those who regularly keep track of the news from the Academy have got to have noticed that: firstly, there was a certain “hiatus” in the news. In other words: a short time (more precisely these last weeks) without updating in this section; secondly, and because of the previous reason, we are publishing some reports with a certain delay. With a real certain delay, for us to be more sincere. But what happened? Has the world crisis also stricken our team – and the Editorial ended up being fired? A hacker’s attack? Or, like most of the times, our intern slept at the wheel and forgot to publish the news?

Not at all, my friends. What happened was something way simpler. And, in fact, a lot more pleasant. An picture is worth more than a thousand words:

[Lawrence from Arabia]

Indeed. GM Rafael Leitão ended up finding an oil well in the backyard of his house, in São Luís, Maranhão, became Sheik and is moving to Dubai. No, wait. Less, a lot less: from April 23 to 26, it happened in Fufeng County, in China, the 1st BRICS Chess Masters 2017. The tournament counted with the participation of our GM – who took the opportunity to, in his way back to Brasil, to pay a visit to Dubai (see photo above – check out more moments of the Boss’s well deserved vacation in his Instagram). And, of course, the Editorial of the Academy without the Boss – and, most importantly, without the chief editor (and the chief of the GM himself!), Camila Leitão -, the things ended up not working very well (and add to that the fact that internet does not work all that well in China).

[Another day of hard work in the Editorial of the Academy… without the bosses close by.]

The Tournament

But leaving the daydreams aside, the 1st BRICS Chess Masters 2017, which, like we have already said, happened from April 23 to 26 in Fufeng County, in China, was a tournament of rapid games (25 minutes plus 10 seconds of increment per move) disputed in 9 rounds, and gathered 10 players from five different countries.

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The nationality of those players was defined, respectively, by each of the letters that form the word BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In reality, the acronym BRICS refers to a political group of economical cooperation among the five countries, and that exists since, approximately, 2006. The tournament is part of a project to strengthen the bonds between BRICS’s five nations. And besides GM Rafael Leitão, our multinational GM Alexandr Fier was the second representative from Brazil. In short, the two players from each of the countries (the rating corresponds to the one of FIDE’s quick chess):

Brazil: GM Rafael Leitão (2618) and GM Alexandr Fier (2568)

Russia: GM Vladimir Potkin (2663) and  GM Alexander Motylev (2594)

India: GM SP Sethuraman (2629) and GM Surya Ganguly (2657)

China: GM Yu Yangyi (2750) and GM Li Chao (2720)

South Africa: MI Daniel Cawdery (2434) and MI Henry Robert Steel (2414)

The 1st BRICS impressed…

…for its excellent conditions…

… and for the popstar treatment given to our players.

Without any doubts the favouritism fell over the local players. Not only over Li Chao, but, especially, over the 22 year-old young GM Yu Yangyi – current 19th of the world. And Yangyi did not disappoint the local crowd. The Chinese GM added up 7 points (undefeated) and finished, isolated, in the first place.
The second place went to the Indian GM (but named as a gigant-japanese-robot-hero) Sethuraman – who added up 6.5 points. Li Chao ended in fifth place with 5.5 points – same number of points of the two Russian GMs, Motylev and Potkin, third and fourth places, respectively.

[Yu Yangyi and Sethuraman – champion and runner-up]

Our GM Leitão ended in the seventh position with the same number of points as the Indian GM Surya Ganguly. Leitão added up 4.5 points with 2 victories, 2 defeats and 5 draws. Highlights to the draws against Motylev, in the seventh round; against Li Chao in the eighth; and against the runner-up Sethuraman, in the sixth. Furthermore, in this draw against Sethuraman, Rafael ended up missing a winning move. Click here and check it out. A good result of GM Leitão against some of the world’s best!

[Non-identified fan harassing GM Rafael Leitão]

GM Fier, loyal to his style, took many risks and ended the tournament in the eight position with 4.0 points – 2 victories, 4 draws and 3 defeats. Highlight to the draw, in the fourth round, against the tournament’s champion, You Yangyi.

[Rafael Leitão facing Li Chao]

The final table:

A big adventure of our GMs. May others come!

SOURCES

Official Website (In Chinese)
Chess Base India

Written by Equipe Academia de Xadrez Rafael Leitão 07-05-2017.

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