Russian Team Chess Championship took off

Russian Team Championship 2008 has taken off in Dagomys (Krasnodar Region) on April 1^st, 2008.

There are 12 teams from 9 cities: Moscow (“ShSM”, “64”, “Spasio-Swiss”), Chelyabinsk (“Southern Ural”), Ekaterinburg (“Ural”), Nizhny Tagil (“Polytechnik”), Saratov (“Economist-SGSEU-1”, “Economist-SGSEU-2”), Tomsk (“Tomsk-400”), St. Petersburg (“FINEK-GazPromBank”), Ulan-Ude (“Shatar-Metropol”) and Saransk (“TPS-Saransk”).

The teams are playing round-robin games on 6 boards. Each team consists of 8 players (6 primary ones, 2 alternates), except “Tomsk-400”, which totals 7 players. The championship will continue up to April 14^th. Game days are: starting April 2^nd till 7^th and starting April 9^th till 14^th, April 8^th is the day-off. The round starts at 11.00, Greenwich time.

The favorites of the Championship are:

“Ural”, Ekaterinburg — Radjabov, Teimour (Azerbaijan, 2751), Shirov, Alexei (Spain, 2755), Kamsky, Gata (USA, 2743), Grischuk, Alexander (Russia, 2711), Malakhov, Vladimir (Russia, 2689), Akopian, Vladimir (Armenia, 2700), Dreev, Alexey (Russia, 2633), Motylev, Alexander (Russia, 2644).

“Economist-SGSEU-1”, Saratov — Alekseev, Evgeny (Russia, 2711), Tomashevsky, Evgeny (Russia, 2646), Eljanov, Pavel (Ukraine, 2692), Ni, Hua (China, 2703), Roiz, Michael (Israel, 2659), Moiseenko, Alexander (Ukraine, 2650), Galkin, Alexander (Russia, 2606), Khairullin, Ildar (Russia, 2554).

“Tomsk-400”, Tomsk — Morozevich, Alexander (Russia, 2774), Karjakin, Sergey (Ukraine, 2732), Jakovenko, Dmitry (Russia, 2711), Van Wely, Loek (Netherlands, 2676), Timofeev, Artyom (Russia, 2664), Kharlov, Andrei (Russia, 2449), Belozerov, Andrei (Russia, 2551).

Related links: 

• Championship official website
• Participants (teams and members)
• Standings
• Online
• Download games in PGN format