The 2nd Chess Stars Cup in Anzali Free Zone

The tournament has been organized by Guilan Chess Association under the auspices of Chess Federation of I. R. Iran and World Chess Federation by sponsorship of Anzali Free Zone Organization. Menwhile with the main event, the organizer provided a National Chess Championship for the youth players, namely “Iranian Youth Chess Stars Championships”. 120 youth players from Iran are competing in 7 rounds in Swiss System. This championship has been organized simultaneous with the 2nd Stars Cup in Anzali Free Zone. The first day of the main tournament was allocated to the Blitz chess event. Players received 3 minutes for the entire game plus 2 seconds increment starting form the first move. Finally, The World Stars Team won the blitz tournament against Iran Stars Team with a 4.5-2.5 score. However there were two surprising results of Iranian players. Alireza Firouzja and Parhal Maghsoodloo, two Iranian youth players, showed absolutely great fighting spirits. The 14-year-old Alireza beat Jobava, Van Wely, Bruzon, Safarli, and Wen Yang and only lost to Shirov! He scored 5 out of 6. In addition, Parham, Current National Chess Champion, got 5.5 out of 7 and won Van Wely, Sirov, Sokolov and Safarli. The first round of the Standard section of 2nd Stars Cup started at 16:00 on July 12th in Anzali Conference Hall. The System of play was Scheveningen. Players received 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting from the first move. The results, especially, of the Iranian players, most of who were youngsters, were significant. The highest individual scores (4.5) were achieved by GM Lazaro Bruzon Batista from Cuba and GM Parham Maghsoodloo who finished event with a with a fantastic 2734 performance. the world stars won against the Iranian youngsters, but with a less convincing result than last year: last year all ten matches finished in favor of the world team whereas this year the Iranian squad managed to win two matches and draw one out of seven rounds.