12th WUC Chess: 5 Games played, 4 to go!

GUIMARAES – Yesterday was the last day at the 12th WUC Chess that the participants played double rounds. In the next days of competition, each day will have only one round during the afternoon. It will start at 4pm, except Saturday which will be the day of decisions and awards.

At the end of the 5^th round of this championship, 5 games were already played by each athlete. It is now possible to make a balance of the first half of the competition.

The male section of this tournament already has two players leading the board: Bu Xiangzhi from China and Vasily Papin from Russia. Both with a score of 4 points that were assigned by the 4 winning matches of Papin and the 3 wins and 2 draws of Bu. But nothing is decided yet! The championship has five more rounds to go and the five Polish, another Russian and a Brazilian are just half a point behind. After all, it’s five more rounds.

In the women’s section, the female athlete from China Zhang Xiaowen doesn’t share leadership with anyone. She leads the board all by herself with a score of 3.5 points.

China, Russia and Poland take the leadership of the score board. The score of the teams is assigned by the sum of the scores of the best male and female players of each country in addiction with the score of just one of the “second’s best” female or male athlete of each team.

At the moment, China is at the top of the table with a score of 12 points followed by the 11.5 Russian points and the 10.5 points from Poland.

“The Referees have to be alert to all the Details”

Carlos DiasOn the third day of competition, Carlos Dias, president of the Refereeing Council of the Portuguese Federation of Chess (FPX), talked about the importance of WUC Chess perform in Portugal. Carlos Dias is surprised by the quality of the competition. “On the one hand, the competitive level is pretty high, on the other hand the organization is giving excellent conditions to the participants”, referred. In what concerns to the importance of the university championships to FPX, the responsible of the championship’s refereeing said that, although those competitions are not in the FPX and FIDE calendar, “the event is interesting for both federations, because it counts for the rating of the institutions”. Carlos Dias also explained that “the good organization of this event shows to the world that Portugal has capabilities to organize an international competition with good quality”. Relatively to the WUC Chess’s refereeing, Carlos Dias is pleased by the fact that referees, until now, didn’t have any problems to solve, during the games. In spite of this fact, “the referees have to be alert to all the details”. The function of Carlos Dias in this Competition is supervising the judges’ work but also evaluate them to give a declaration saying that those referees can integrate the international federation of Chess.

Carlos Manuel Guimarães de Oliveira Dias was born in 1959 and is the current president of the Refereeing Council of the Portuguese Federation of Chess (FPX). He was nominated international referee in 1997, integrating FIDE. In 2010, Carlos Dias was elevated to the position of FIDE’s lecturer, place held by only 42 judges in the whole world. Head of refereeing of the 10th WUC Chess was also delegate of FPX’s Assembly.

(Source: Rita Magalhães, OC)

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