Russkie's Farewell Blitz
Our regular sparring partner for the Singapore Olympiad and Asian nations events, FM Andrey Terekhov was poised to leave the shores of Singapore...the Microsoft executive having been assigned to Paris, France and come August, his family would be settling in the fine European city.
Typically, when we get bored, the whole posse will descend to Balestier to either the function room at my place, the police club next door or the Subway joint at Zhong Shan mall for a blitz bangout but in Covid season, the logical choice for the Russkie send-off is an online blitz event with trash talking via Zoom.
So at 8pm, we started the zoom session and of course, the initial discussion focused on Andrey's recent stunning win of the FIDE Book of the Year award for his The Life and Games of Vassily Smyslov (The Early Years 1921-1948) by Russell Enterprise.
For Andrey's last 8 years residing in Singapore, he seems to have done pretty well chess-wise, finishing in the top 5 of local events more than a dozen times, the most notable being 1st place at the Kickoff 2015 and 2nd place at the Cairnhill Blitz 2019. He also became an ICCF International Master in 2014, after wrecking a field chokeful of SIMs and IMs. Before he started his humongous Smyslov project, he dabbled in theoretical chess research and publishing too, and had his Sicilian Taimanov article popping up in Chessbase Magazine 173.
Initially, it was meant to be a closed 6 rounds blitz session among kakis but GM Kevin Goh and Andrey decided to open it up to the CAC and Yuhua whatsapp group and let all comers have a go at the masters.
And so the event commenced with 25 players with 4 members of the next Online Olympiad, GM Kevin Goh Wei Ming, IM Tin Jingyao, IM Hsu Li Yang and WGM Gong Qianyun in the fray.
Kevin simply dominated the event from start to finish, cruising easily to 5.5/6 leaving Li Yang, Andrey and your scribe a big point behind in tied 2nd positions. Jingyao and Siew Kai Xin (Singapore Olympiad player in Batumi 2018 and Baku 2016) took equal 5th spot with 4/6.
Games Section
There was a question on the 257 strong ChessagainstCovid Whatsapp group on how Andrey got his Russkie Steamroller nickname. He's Russian, hence, the 'Russkie' part is self explanatory, but GM Goh gave him the 'Steamroller' moniker because of the type of game he plays...when in form, he simply annexes space and crushes his opponent down the centre. Watch this game and you will understand why...
IM Tin Jingyao starts off the black side of the Open Catalan gambit laconically but suddenly switches gears and White is suddenly toast.
IM Hsu and IM Tin have a similar style, the ability to absorb ferocious attacks indefinitely and then repel the forces and overturn the game later. In this instance, it's the veteran master who demonstrates how it's done!
