Kharkiv’s Korobov crowned Ukraine’s chess champ for second time

After 11 hard fought rounds, Anton Korobov emerged a full point ahead of a strong field of 11 other grandmasters who had a combined average FIDE rating of 2666 – a record for the nation’s top chess honors in the 81 years that it has been held, and by today’s standards would be considered an international super chess tournament.

Seven of
the nine Ukrainian grandmasters that are ranked in the top 100 in the world took part in
the mind sport event.

Korobov,
27, ended the almost two-week chess battle without losing to opponents that
included Ruslan Ponomariov, the 2002 world chess champion, and Ukraine’s 2011
chess champion. Korobov also bested four other ex-Ukrainian title holders along
the way earning him a $20,000 prize fund and an above 2700 rating performance.

He scored
eight points out of a possible 11 in the single round-robin event, in a field
that included six grandmasters rated higher than him leading into the
tournament.

Korobov,
who is a graduate of Ukraine’s famed Kramatorsk chess school in Donetsk Oblast  – along with Ponomariov, Zakhar Efimenko, Oleksandr
Areshchenko, and Yuriy Kuzubov – first won the championship in 2002 in the
Crimean resort town of Alushta.

Former world chess champion Ruslan Ponomariov couldn’t repeat last year’s performance as the nation’s king on 64 squares.

Tiebreakers
had Areshchenko of Luhansk come in second who trailed whoever was in first
place for the latter half of the tournament. In third came Lviv’s Andriy
Volokytin who held the lead in the later rounds but dropped crucial points
under pressure.

As a testament to the competition’s fierce competitiveness, only four players came out with a plus score after the tournament.

Rated 2691,
Areshchenko also had an above 2700 rating performance with Korobov who is
currently rated at 2683 by FIDE, the world’s chess governing body.

The total
prize fund was $75,000, the same as in 2011.

All the
matches can be viewed in PGN format here.

The
tournament was held in Kyiv’s President Hotel.

Four of the
tournament’s participants will join their compatriot Vasyl Ivanchuk of Lviv on Aug.
27 in Turkey to
defend Ukraine’s title in the biennial world FIDE chess Olympiad.

Final Standings of the 2012 Ukrainian Chess Championship, Kyiv, President Hotel