International Events / 2015 World Team Championships
The 2015 World Team Championships
A fifth-place finish for our ninth-ranked squad in Armenia; Women’s team finishes in ninth place. By GM ALEX ONISCHUK
(L-R): GM VARUZHAN AKOBIAN, GM GREGORY KAIDANOV (COACH), GM SAM SHANKLAND, GM DANIEL NARODITSKY, GM ALEXANDER ONISCHUK, GM ALEKSANDR LENDERMAN, IM JOHN DONALDSON (CAPTAIN)
Russia, Ukraine, China and Armenia took part in the event. The U.S. was seeded only ninth before the start since many of our best players could not play in the tourna - ment (mainly due to busy schedules). This was a great opportunity for our
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younger players to get valuable experience playing the world’s best players. Daniel Naroditsky and Alex Lenderman played in this strong team event for the first time.
30 July 2015 | Chess Life
he 2015 World Team Chess Cham - pi onship was the strongest world cham pi on ship in history. Most of the top chess countries including
Sam Shankland turned in a brilliant result at the chess Olympiad as an alternate player (gold-medal performance on board five) and this time he was promoted to board one, facing opponents with an average rating way significantly above 2700. Thank you to the U.S. Chess Federation
for making it possible for us to play in this event. I also would like to thank our captain IM John Donaldson and coach GM Gregory Kaidanov for their hard work. They built an excellent atmosphere in our team and they both deserve great credit
for our overall strong result. We all arrived in Yerevan, Armenia, a
few days before the championship. GM Varuzhan “Var” Akobian, who was born in Armenia, gave us an excellent tour of the city. We had a chance to see a lot of attractions, and, of course, try the local cuisine. Caucasian fare is delicious; it has lots of meat dishes, but even for our vegetarian coaches John and Gregory there was always a great selection. One day we visited the chess club where Var learned how to play chess and the chess palace named for former World Champion
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