Asian Nations Cup – China wins both sections

The Asian Nations Chess Cup

The Asian Nations Chess Cup took place from May 17 to 26 in Zaozhuang, Shandong, China. The event was a nine-round event bringing together many of Asia's top players including Wang Hao (2730), Krishnan Saskiran (2720), Le Quang Liem (2703), and more.

Final standings after nine rounds

A key match in round three between India and China-1 ended in a fighting 2-2 draw

Already champion after round eight, China-1 continued its dominance, beating
Mongolia 3½:½ to finish with 17 match points, two ahead of nearest rival India...

... who blanked Iraq 4:0 to cement their silver finish with 15 points (Krishnan Sasikiran,
Abhijeet Gupta, Parimarjan Negi, Hari Krishna Pentala and Gopal Geetha Narayanan).


Vietnam shut out Hong Kong 4:0 to win the bronze Nations Cup. Above is the
Vietnam men's team, with Chief Arbiter Gao Zhiqian on the right

In the final round China-2 kept pace, beating Chinese Taipei by a 4:0 shutout to finish higher with 13 points. Iran worked hard to earn its 3½:½ victory over Kazakhstan. Singapore whitewashed Yemen by the same 3½:½ score. And Indonesia beat Korea 3:1

Best scores in the open section

Womens division

The Chinese team with new Chinese Chess Association president Yang Jun’an (right)

In the women's section India beat China-3 by 2½:1½ on the win by GM Harika
Dronavalli, as the other three boards were drawn. The Indian ladies took Bronze

The Vietnamese Women's team with Asian Chess Federation Deputy President
Casto Abundo and Chief Arbiter Gao Zhiqian.

In the final round China-1, already champion after round eight, beat Mongolia by a similar 3½:½ score as their male compatriots. Vietnam edged Indonesia 2½:1½ on wins by Pham Le Thao and Pham Bich Ngoc. China-2 blanked Singapore 4:0 to tie India at 14 points. Iran tried to land in the medal standings as they beat Kazakhstan 3:1. Iran tied Vietnam at 8 match points each but in game points tie break had 16½ game points. Vietnam won the tie with 18 game points. China-3 had higher final score of 11 match points but as decided at the Technical Meeting that three teams from different countries shall win Asian Nations trophies, the bronze Nations Cup was won by Vietnam.

Final standings Women after nine rounds

Zaozhuang (in Shandong, China) as it presents itself today...

... and the way it was in previous centuries

Was that a good move? Zaozhuang is full of bronze statues – above playing Chinese chess Xiangqi

Video reports by Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh

As in the Asian Continental earlier this month our Iranian colleague has been doing some extraordinary – we would even say pioneering – work in chess reporting. Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh is an International FIDE arbiter, chess trainer and the treasurer of the Asian Chess Federation. He has a background in architecture and speaks fluent Persian, English and Arabic.

We have been egging Mehrdad on, telling him to make full use of the local players and organisers and have them do voice-over commentary on his video images – even if the accent is sometimes a bit difficult so understand. Show us the venue, show us the surrounding country, introduce us to the players. He went ahead and excelled himself. We urge you to watch these professional and creative videos, even if you normally do not have the time to do so – just to scan pictures and read the captions. As we said before: who would have thought that an Iranian would show us how to make chess reporting really informative and enjoyable.

Video report after round three

Video report after round four

The Blitz Tournament

Video report on the blitz competitions – another chance to learn how to pronounce Asian names

We absolutely challenge you to pronounce the name of this 2167 player from Vietnam. The solution can be found at around 3 min 20 sec into the video. No, it is not a sound glitch – as we have mentioned before Vietnamese has implosive consonants. This means that the sounds are generated by air flowing in the reverse direction. Also the Vietnamese, as well as other East Asian nations, abhor consonant clusters, especially at the end of words. At the airport you might hear a slightly nazalised "Fla ba far Ha Ka", which translates to "Flight bound for Hong Kong".

Links Official tournament site All men's games in PGN All women's games in PGN You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.

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