world qualifier 2016

[John Acker]

Congratulations to Sergio Scarpetta for his victory in the 2016 3-Move World Qualifying Tournament!

Here's how Round 8 turned out:

Scarpetta 3 Baghtiyar Durdyev 1
Moiseyev 3 Sokolovsky 1
Bernini 2 Kondlo 2
Morrison 2 Martynov 2
Beckwith 3 Joliff 1
Umala 2 Bashim Durdyev 2
M. Durdyev 2 Layne 2
Price 4 Katamba 0

Final Standings:

1. Sergio Scarpetta 23
2. Alex Moiseyev 22
3. Matteo Bernini 19
4. Lubabalo Kondlo 19
5. Richard Beckwith 18
6. Baghtiyar Durdyev 18
7. Igor Martynov 17
8. Jim Morrison 17
9. Colin Price 17
10. Bashim Durdyev 15
11. Mark Sokolovsky 15
12. Patrick Umala 15
13. Maksat Durdyev 15
14. John Joliff 14
15. Kent Layne 10
16. Nicholas Katamba 2

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Congratulations to reigning GAYP World Champion Mr. Sergio Scarpetta for winning such an important event. I can't wait to see 3-moves WTM Borghetti-Scrapetta. This will be awesome attractive event.

Concerning my performance in Rome ... It was one of the best, or maybe just the best event I ever played in the past 2-3 years. From 16 games I won 6, drew 10, was in lost in 1 single game against I. Martyynov (was lucky to drew it). But most important thing - I didn't miss anything at all, as often happened in the nearest past. From 8 my opponents 7 are among top 7 (excluding myself). Sergio just played as good as I did and a bit better, or maybe having better luck ... or both.

In 2014 WQT I had 21 points and 3rd place, in 2016 - 22 points and 2nd place, what happen in 2018 ?

Many thanks to all my contributors. I am still a bit recovering after tournament, but soon will annotate all my games (and maybe some other) as promised.

Respectfully,

AM

[Igor]

On the Russian website about draughts of Ivan Trofimov: http://64-100.com/ appeared my article about WQT-2016 in Rome in Russian with my photos and two games:
http://64-100.com/vse-dorogi-vedut-v-ri ... o-chekersu

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Igor - Sergio won 7 games and I won 6, not 6 and 5. Anything else in your report is accurate and photos are fantastic! ... as usually

[Igor]

Just for ACF readers I’ve translated my article into English which I’d published two months ago on the Russian draughts site. I hope that it will be interesting for you too.

All roads lead to Rome

Honestly I did not want to write any report about the tournament where I failed. But after a while I calmed down and decided to inform the Russian draughts community about the events in the Checkers World.
For myself I decided that I took the place that I eventually deserved and the 7th place in the tournament with 8 GMs for the master is generally not such a bad result. But I really had good chances for a better place and very big ones. However let us start in the order, one after another.

The main Checkers events in 2016 were the 3-move World tournaments in Rome. They were carried out in three categories. For men it was the challenger tournament which defined the strongest player in the match for the World title against the actual World champion Michele Borghetti from Italy. For women and juniors the World champions were determined directly.

In the men’s World Qualifier tournament there took place 16 participants from 8 countries. They played 8 rounds with the Swiss system. Previously declared Ukrainian players did not come for various reasons but the new African country is appeared – Uganda. As expected the main fight for the desired first place was fought out between the World GAYP Champion Sergio Scarpetta from Italy and our former compatriot the “Sixth” World Champion Alex Moiseyev. Sergio made more victories – 7, he scored 23 points and took first place. Alex reached “only” 6 victories – 22 points and the second place. Bronze was won by the young Italian star Matteo Bernini – 19 points. The following places were taken by: 4. Lubabalo Kondlo (South Africa) - 19 points, 5. Richard Beckwith (USA) 6. Durdyev Bahtiyar (Turkmenistan) - both 18 points. Now two local matches will be played in Italy for the World titles and both between Italians Michele Borghetti and Sergio Scarpetta. The first one in GAYP will take place this year, here Sergio is the Champion and Micky – the Challenger. In the second one in 3-move version everything is the other way round: Micky is the Champion and Sergio – the Challenger.

Sergio Scarpetta – Lubabalo Kondlo

Jim Morrison – Nicolas Katamba

John Jolliff – Lane Kent

Maksat Durdyev – Richard Beckwith

The winners of the men’s tournament

[Igor]

The tournament began very promisingly for me. I started perfectly and was even the leader. At first I won both games against the Englishman Jolliff and the first game with Kondlo – the last year challenger. Then I missed two wins: in the second game with Kondlo and in the first one with Moiseyev. To miss such a unique chance – to win the “Russian bear”, as it is called in America, was particularly disappointing because such opportunity will hardly ever arise again. And then it followed the failure – 3 defeats in a row – in the second game with Alex Moiseyev and double loss to Sergio Scarpetta and all my vanity plans were collapsed. In my subsequent games I lost also to Matteo Bernini, missed 3 wins but succeeded to win against both brothers Bashim and Baghtiyar Durdyev and took revenge for the defeats in the past. Finally I took the 7th place. After the tournament Alex Moiseyev said that he was satisfied with his result although he took only the second place. I remember his words in Beijing 2008 that any place except the first was a failure. However, in this tournament he used all his chances to 100% and scored a maximum of possible points. It meant that he had 6 times the winning positions and won all of them; he had one losing position (against me) and managed to defend it. So he could not have acted any better, his main rival just reached to gain one more win. And I had 10(!) winning positions from which I could realize only 5 wins and thus lost 4 times. So I had potentially a chance even to win the tournament. My game could be compared with a gambler who got good cards constantly but had not enough skills to take advantage. I still don’t know whether Sergio used all his chances however even he could lose once to Baghtiyar Durdyev. By the way in the case of success the representative of Turkmenistan could take a bronze. But all this talk is only speculative; after the fight there is no sense in waving the fists. Everybody has a chance, you just need only to use it. Actually in the realization consists the level of skills. I see the reserves in my growth – I need to train the calculation and to make fewer mistakes. It is curious that from all my 16 games only one was without any mistakes from both sides. I can’t remember anything similar when I had played Russian draughts. Apparently after all, if Checkers is not more difficult than Russian draughts then there are more chances to be mistaken. I can also add that if the leading players from Russian draughts or 10 by 10 were engaged with Checkers then they would be quickly settled in the leading places. However, Checkers has one essential scarcity: WCDF is an organization where there are neither rich donors nor patrons who promote the game just like in other kinds of Draughts. One has to travel at one’s own expense but the prizes are too small. That is why Checkers is of little interest for the Draughts professionals. It is a pity – the game is interesting!

[Igor]

To the female World Championship there arrived 9 participants from 5 countries and 4 of them were from Turkmenistan. It caused debates from the Ukrainian players. The fact is that each draughts federation can be represented by only two sportsmen. However, each country may have as many of federations as it wants, it is enough only to pay a fee to WCDF. On the same basis 4 Americans were involved in the men’s tournament. Ukrainians proposed the system of the championship with subgroups just like in football and then KO-system to eliminate any negotiations among native players. It was too complicate with such a number of participants and on vote by majority it was decided to hold a round robin tournament. Here Amangul Berdiyeva succeeded to regain the second World title with a score – 26 points. I remind you that last year she became a Champion in GAYP and now in 3-move version, as well. Second and third places went to Ukrainian women Alena Maksymova – 24 points and Nadija Chizhevska – 23 points. Further 4.Altynay Azezova (Turkmenistan), 5.Vitalia Doumesh (Netherlands), 6.Arazsaltan Amanmyradova (Turkmenistan).

Amangul Berdiyeva – Alena Maksymova

In the middle Vitalia Doumesh is playing with Nadija Chizhevska

A persistent fight was conducted in the junior tournament between two Turkmenian and three Italian players in round robin system. As a result, the Turkmenian Pinagylych Ezizgylyjov became World Champion – 10 points, silver and bronze went to Italians 2.David Zhou and 3.Vincenzo Sgro. The next places were taken 4.Elia Cantatore and 5.Dovran Arabov – both 6 points. Who cares, all the standings can be found on my website: http://home.arcor.de/checkers64/.

Three Champions

[Igor]

Rome – the eternal city is, of course, infinitely beautiful and interesting. It is always possible to find here something new for yourself although it is already old and long-forgotten. I arrived in Rome with my wife Nadja 4 day before the tournament started and all days long we simply walked around the city, enjoyed the charm of the lovely streets and admired the luxury of the numerous churches. We visited the Vatican and some museums last year and now we had neither energy nor time for them. Then Nadja returned home and I moved to the Olympic complex where we lived and played.

Coliiseo

Tibr

Fountain Trevi. It is always briskly here. After a famous scene at Trevi with Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroiani from the movie “La dolce vita” fountain turned into a place of an incessant pilgrimage for all tourists and became a permanent magnet attracting different people.

Fountain in Piazza Navona

Endless cafes in the downtown

One of the churches in Rome, of which there are many

[Igor]

Olympic village is located in a green zone in the prestigious area of the city. Directly opposite to the village there is a huge mosque. We descended there once with the Turkmen team. Just at this time there was celebrated the greatest Muslim holiday – Ramadan. We were treated... The Italian Draughts Federation FID organized a festive banquet for the participants of the tournaments where the main decorations of the table were two big cakes with emblems of WCDF and FID and a walk in the night city.

Two cakes and two Presidents

Everybody threw coins into the famous fountain Trevi to come ever back again. The Rome vacation ended unfortunately too quickly…

[George Hay]

Igor, thank you for posting your article in English on the ACF Forum. The original Russian language article had two entertaining games from the tournament:

http://64-100.com/vse-dorogi-vedut-v-ri ... o-chekersu

I learned a trick to get all of the moves to the games. Some of the moves were literally "lost in translation" in English, so I clicked on the original Russian from the language selector (upper right hand corner), and the missing moves would magically reappear!

Amangul Berdiyeva of Turkmenistan reclaimed the 3-Move Women's World Championship in 2016, just as she reclaimed the GAYP Women's World Championship in 2015.

In the aftermath of the 2016 World Qualifier in June in Rome, it was 3-Move World Champion Michele Borghetti challenging GAYP World Champion Sergio Scarpetta in July also in Rome. Michele Borghetti won the GAYP WCM 1-0-23, and is now the GAYP World Champion as well as the 3-Move World Champion.

Later in July it was "déjà vu all over again," as Yogi Berra would say, at the 2016 ACF National 3-Move Tournament in Branson, Missouri, USA. In the Masters, it was Sergio Scarpetta of Italy in first place, and Alex Moiseyev of the USA in second place.... Former World Champion Ron King of Barbados ,who was conspicuously missing in Rome, took third place at the ACF Nationals.

In 2017 Sergio Scarpetta will challenge 3-Move World Champion Michele Borghetti in a 40 game World Championship Match.

--George Hay