National team member, Grandmaster from St. Petersburg Anastasia Bondaruk is the rating favourite women’s tournament of the RSSU Chess Cup Moscow Open 2016. She has made her way to the victory in the first round and answered our website correspondent’s questions Eteri Kublashvili.

- Nastya, how many times have you played at the Moscow Open?
- To be honest, I cannot answer...

- Means a lot.
Yeah, I played about 5-7 times.

First winners of RSSU Cup Moscow Open 2016 are found out. Within the Cup, competition among school students was held last Friday. 120 chess player born in 2001 and later took part in the event.
FIDE Master from Ukraine Kirill Shevchenko gained a convincing victory. In 9 games he lost only half a point to his competitors and showed 8,5 out of 9 points.

National master of Azerbaijan Kanan Karaev became a silver-prize winner with 7,5 points. A chess player from St. Petersburg Kirill Shubin showed the same result, however according to tie-breaks he became the third.

The best tie-breaks helped Alexandra Maltsevskaya from Rostov-on-Don to show the best result among girls

Official Opening Ceremony of XII International RSSU Chess Cup Moscow Open 2016 was held at the Russian State Social University on Saturday, 30st January.

The Opening Ceremony started with RSSU choir's Gaudeamus performance. After that, a permanent anchor man, national Russian actor Artem Kaminskiy appeared on the scene. He welcomed the guests with Stefan's Zweig chess quote.

Actors of Anastasia Obertaeva Light show performed with a beautiful scene “Seasons of the Year”.

An official part of the ceremony started with a cheerful drummers performance, and 42 national flags of countries-participants of the Festival were carried to the stage.

Youth FIDE World Championship in Composing will be held from 31st January to 3rd February within XII International RSSU Chess Cup Moscow Open 2016.
An open tournament in chess composing will be held 31st January (2 two moves, 2 three moves, 1 four moves, 1 etude). Every participant under 19 is allowed to play.
Competitions between participants under 15 and 17 (3 two moves, 1 three move, 1 four move, 1 etude) will start 1st February and finish 2nd February.

On the last day (3rd February) an elimination round in two moves chess composing will be organized.

29 January 2016 in the Russian State Social University at the XII International RSSU Chess Cup Moscow Open 2016 “The most mass chess lesson” was organised by RSSU and Moscow Chess Federation especially for World Guinness Records.

More than 250 students and pupils listened to 35-minutes lecture of the International School Chess Union president, PhD Aleksander Kostiev about the first chess world champion Wilhelm Steinitz with a demonstration of great chess player's games. The necessary conditions were: lesson duration should have been more than 30 minutes and more than 250 people should have participated in the lesson. 

The official opening of the 12th International RSSU Chess Cup Moscow Open  2016 will be held on 30 January at 3 p.m. Moscow time. A number of distinguished guests have confirmed their participation in the ceremony. The event will be broadcasted online in the Internet.

We would like to remind that 30 January at 3 p.m. the main open tournaments will begin: men's and women's stages of Russia Moscow Open Cup, tournaments among chess amateurs and veterans.

Two chess tournaments have started at the same time: RSSU Cup among students and RSSU Cup among school champions. The events are being held as a part of the XII International Festival Moscow Open in the Russian State Social University. As usual, young chess players compete in the morning – independently from other participants. They have separate opening and closing ceremonies as well. In 12 years of Festival existence, chess stars, Grandmasters and International Masters have grown up from children Tournament participants.

Students Tournament is being held for the first time in the current format: there is no usual round students tournaments and students-grandmasters.  

The Russian State Social University organizes live streaming of the opening ceremony of the RSSU school champion and student cups. The event will be held on January 29 in the RSSU Event Hall and will begin at 10 am Moscow time.

This is to remind you that the first games of the student and school children competitions will take place on this day. Moreover, after lunch time there will be a blitz tournament among children and “The largest chess lesson” that will be nominated for the Guinness World Records.

Watch live streaming.

This is to remind you that prior to the beginning of the competitions it is required to undergo accreditation process at the game venue.

The participant accreditation for RSSU Cup among school children and RSSU Cup among students will be held on January 28 from 10am to 7pm. The following day, January 29, the participant accreditation for the Russian Cup stages among men and women, RSSU Amateur Cup and RSSU Chess Veteran Cup will be held at the same time.

It is requested to bring passports and birth certificates (for children). Parents and coaches are allowed to undergo accreditation for children upon presentation of a child’s document.

Dear festival participants!

Due to the registration procedure for the Guinness World Records, the date of the RSSU blitz cup among school children has been changed. It will take place on Friday, January 29 instead of January 31 as planned earlier.

On January 29 at 10am there will be an opening of school and student competitions of the festival followed by the first round. The registration for participation in “The largest chess lesson” for the Guinness World Records will begin at 3.30pm. The lesson will take place in room No 300 from 4pm to 4.30pm.

Afterwards there will be a participant registration for the blitz tournament among school children that will begin at 5pm.

The press conference dedicated to the organization of the International RSSU Chess Cup Moscow Open 2016 in the capital was held in a multimedia centre of TASS news agency on Tuesday, January 26.

The press conference was assisted by Vladimir Palikhata, the President of Moscow Chess Federation; Natalia Pochinok, RSSU Rector, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor and Active Member of the Russian Academy of Social Sciences; Albert Chiliev, Deputy Chief of Moscow Department of Physical Culture and Sports; Mark Glukhovsky, Executive Director of Russian Chess Federation; Alexander Kostyev, President of International School Chess Union and Tournament Director; Oleg Zhuravsky, honorary president of “Liga Stavok” bookmaker company.

Vladimir Palikhata said that for Moscow Chess Federation it is the most important event in the event calendar. 

Dear friends!

It's been twelve years since RSSU has first begun to host chess players from all over the country and even abroad. We had planned to launch a regular national student and school children tournament but following the suggestion of the Moscow Chess Federation and with the help of Moskomsport it was decided to transform it into an international festival Moscow Open. And nowadays this festival annually gathers more than 1500 chess players. Thus, as of today we already have more then 2000 applications from the regions of Russia and 38 foreign countries!

As always, traditional RSSU Cup nominations are given to men, women, amateurs,  veterans, students,and school children. 

The 12th International RSSU Chess Cup Moscow Open-2016 will take place in the Russian State Social University from January 28 to February 8, 2016. This week the Tournament Regulations have been signed by Vladimir Palikhata, the President of Moscow Chess Federation, and the RSSU Rector Natalia Pochinok. The total guaranteed prize fund of the festival is 4 730 000 rubles.

This year saw some changes in the Cup programme. Instead of two round-robin grandmaster tournaments among students there will be only one Swiss system tournament with individual and team events. The Moscow Open programme will also include a RSSU Blitz Cup that will take place on February 8 after end of the main tournaments.

The main Moscow Open tournaments will be the stages of the Russian Cup 2016 among men and women. The festival programme will include:

The Award Ceremony of the RSSU Chess Cup, Moscow Open 2015 winners and medalists was held on Sunday, Feb 8. Entered the scene to congratulate the most successful participants of the competition were: Natalia Pochinok, rector of the University; Evgeny Bushmin, deputy chairman of the Federation Council of the RF Federal Assembly; Nikolay Gulyaev, deputy chairman of the Moscow Department of Physical Education and Sport; Nikita Kim, 1st vice-president of the Moscow Chess Federation; Alexey Ivanov, chairman of the PricewaterhouseCoopers auditing company; and Oleg Zhuravsky, honorary president of the Liga Stavok bookmaker company.