China takes top honours in both, bridge and chess!

As the first-ever FISU World University Championship Mind Sports (online) concluded, teams from China emerged as champions in both the sports – chess and bridge.

 

The 2020 FISU WUC Mind Sports was originally scheduled to be held onsite in Bydgoszcz, Poland, but was switched to an online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With more than 500 participants, interest in the online event had been very high.

 

Chess

Among the 78 registered teams in chess, Team China 1 became the 2020 FISU World University Mind Sport Champion, with perfect scores of 18/18 in the qualification stage and 8/8 in the play-offs.

 

Out of 52 individual games that Chinese players were involved in, they lost only one; such was their dominance, despite the fact that they started the tournament seeded number two behind Armenia.

 

Road to the final:

The players from China 1 entered the quarter finals by defeating Colombia 4-0. Then, they had quite a tough match against their compatriots China 4, the match finishing with the result 2.5 – 1.5.

 

The semi-final was an excellent match against grandmasters from Armenia, but the top billed team had to accept a 0.5 – 3.5 result.  

 

In the grand finale, China faced Team Ukraine. Three games ended in draws and it was in the last one, that China 1 captain Lei Tingije (silver medallist at the World Rapid Chess) was playing against Iulija Osmak of the Ukrainian Olympiad Team.

 

 

In the crucial l position, white (Tingije) played with a rook to g4, threatening with a mate in two moves (queen h6-g7). Black was forced to give some material to defend herself. After a few moves of attack, white played with a queen to h6! Both queen and rook were not defended, but black cannot capture a queen because of a pin. Therefore, black decided to take a rook for free which led to Qxe6. Check and knight was lost in the next move. With two pawns more and a weak black king, the Chinese player secured a win for herself and for the team.

 

In the fight for the third place, very strong teams from Belarus and Armenia faced each other. In this exciting encounter, three games ended in a draw and it was up to Grandmaster Sargasyan and International Master Nikitienko to decide who will go home with bronze medals. Finally, it was Sargasyan who won the game and secured third place for the team from Armenia.

 

On the final day of chess, FIDE (International Chess Federation) Vice President Lukasz Turlej paid a visit to the studio. He spoke about the importance of chess in schools and universities.

 

“Chess is both, a game and a tool for education,” said Turlej. “The 2020 FISU World University Championship Mind Sports has been a success for FISU and for the Polish University Sports Federation. It was a great event, gathering 551 student athletes from four continents and forty countries. Chess will only get stronger and stronger in the family of university sport.”

 

 

Bridge

After five days of play and 26 teams taking each other on, it came down to a final clash between China 1 and Italy 1 to decide the champion of the bridge tournament. China 1 beat Italy 1 141-71 in a 48 board match. In the bronze medal play-off, France beat Poland 3 72-40 (32 boards).

 

The most interesting board of the finals:

The most interesting board according to onsite experts was No. 4 of the last session of the final.

 

South had led a spade and China 1 chalked +1000 for two down. North/South here may have been used as Lightner style doubles.

 

In their convention card l/d doubles were mentioned, and it could be understood as Lead Directing Doubles. The choice of the spade made here was a winning move.

 

At replay East-West were less ambitious. Here also, spade was led, and the contract set by 1 trick, but it was one zero less and 14 imps for China 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final rankings were as follows:

1. CHINA 1: Zijie CHU, Songyuan GUO, Yifan QU, Yuyang WANG, Yanwei ZHANG, Shijiao ZHANG

 

2. ITALY 1: Giovanni DONATI, Gabriele GIUBILO, Gianmarco GIUBILO, Andrea MANGANELLA, Federico PORTA TADOLINI, Sebastiano SCATA

 

3. FRANCE: Raphael BASLER, Luc BELLICAUD, Artur BOULIN, Maxence FRAGOLA Nao TABATA, Melic DUFRENE