Genrikh Chepukaitis

There are still crowns to be won (18.11.2000)

100 Challengers (21.11.2000)

More than half of participants are rated under 2600. Only one of them will begin to struggle from the second round, the bright meteor of Las Vegas, Romanian GM Nisipeanu.

What should we wait from the Russia Champion S. Volkov? The Champion’s rating is not very impressive, as against to his tournament results. One way or another, after the first round there will be at least one Russia Championship less at the event: Volkov’s pair is Sakaev, the GM from St.Petersburg who won the Russia Championship in 1999.

Also the result of the duel between Rustemov and Tregubov is hard to guess. Although the opponents have different ratings, Rustemov’s chances are no worse, and the Moscow Champion is able to win.

Gulko – Bezgodov. GM Gulko from Moscow lives in the USA for a long time. He was even the USA Champion, but the “average” grandmaster Bezgodov was a champion too, and that of a more serious chess region, Russia. Will the American Moscower defeat the Moscow Moscower?

The computer arranged the players according to their ratings for the 36 games of the first round. Our prognosis is just an experiment – we declare that the weaker side will win in four games at the least, though in most cases those whose rating is less will remain where they are.