RRI Sports Club– The Chess Kings Tournament

Medias will host the Kings tournament, pitting Romania against China.

Ștefan Baciu, 26.11.2014, 14:20

The Romanian men’s chess team is today playing the defending Olympic champion China in a match venued by Medias in central Romania, as part of the 8th edition of the Kings Tournament. Previous editions were played in a fixed format, featuring a certain number of worldclass players, including the defending world champion Magnus Carlsen, who won the 2010 and 2011 editions. Three of China’s players, Wang Yue, Ni Hua and Wei Yi also played in the team Olympiad in Tromso, Norway, where they won gold. Joining the match against Romania is 19-year-old Lu Shanglei, who last month became the under-21 world champion in Pune, India. Romania’s team, coached by international master Sergiu Grunberg, is made up of Constantin Lupulescu, Mircea Parligras, Vlad Jianu and Vladislav Nevednichy.

As a preface to the match pitting Romania against China in Medias, Bucharest will hold a blitz tournament, where all players will play 3-minute matches, in addition to another 2 seconds for every move. Taking part will be Mihnea Costachi, bronze medallist in the 14-year category at the Under-21 World Championships this year, as well as Bogdan-Daniel Deac, the youngest international chess master. The under-21 tournament this year was won easily by Lu Shanglei, who gave no chances to the other competitors, scoring 5 wins in the first 5 rounds. Although losing in the last but one round to Constantin Lupulescu of Romania, Lu Shanglei went on to win the blitz tournament with 6.5 points in 9 games. Here is what the Chinese coach Li Wenliang told the press after the tournament:

“Chinese players have scooped first and second place, these are very good results for China. The Romanian team also played well, I would single out this young, remarkable player — Bogdan Deac”.

Bogdan Deac ranked 6th at the end of the tournament with 5 points, defeating no less than 4 players, Wei Yi and Ni Hua of China and Vladislav Nevednichy and Mircea Parligras of Romania.

The match in Medias is also a good test ahead of upcoming international competitions. Lu Shanglei and Constantin Lupulescu are set to play in the World Cup, a knock-out-based competition at the end of which eight finalists qualify to the World Title tournament. The winner of this tournament will then have the chance to challenge the title of world champion Magnus Carlsen.