Leon Luke Mendonca wins Gold and Silver for Varos Arad at Romanian Superliga Team 2022
India's 67th GM Leon Luke Mendonca won an individual Gold on Board no.3. He also won a team Silver medal for ACS Sah Club Vados Arad at Superliga - Romanian Team Chess Championship 2022. Leon started the event with a loss. However, he bounced back by scoring 6.5 points in the next eight rounds. Starting out as the second-highest rated team, they managed to maintain their place. Leon was the top scorer of the team along with GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen (CZE) and FM Samuel-Timotei Ghimpu (ROU) who also scored the same 6.5/9. CSU ASE Superbet won both Open and Women's event with a score of 16/18 and 11/12 respectively. Photo: Leon's twitter
CSU ASE Superbet wins Gold in both Open and Women
Apart from Leon, the only other taking part in this event was India's 75th GM Pranav Venkatesh. He played for Clubul de Sah al Municipiului Baia Mare and scored 5/9. Leon's next event is World Junior 2022 which starts tomorrow in Sardinia, Italy.
Leon - Stepanencu, Round 2
GM Leon Luke Mendonca (2558) bounced back quite well in the second round against FM Nicodim-Cosmin Stepanescu (ROU, 2289). White is in complete control. Almost everything is winning for White. 39.g5 is quite possible right now. After 39...Bc8, 40.e6 is a beautiful tactical shot which works, irrespective of how Black reacts to it. However, in the game Leon opted for the safer 40.Qf3 as he lost the previous round and did not want to take any unnecessary risks as it was a team event.
Leon - Secheres, Round 7
Leon is a versatile player. He can exploit positional advantage quite well too. White was positionally winning in under 20 moves after gaining the a7-pawn on 19th move. Sometimes you know that the position is completely winning for you and yet opponent can still put up a resistance for some time before everything crumbles. 34.h4 was the final blow to disintegrate FM Adrian-Simion Secheres' (ROU, 2375) position. 34...gxh4 35.Bxh4 Ng6 36.Bg3 Ne8 37.Nd5 Qd8 38.Kg2 Nf6 39.Ne3 Ne7 40.e5 and Black loses an important pawn on d6. White won the game in another six moves.
GM Leon Luke Mendonca tweeted on his performance
He attended the Global Chess Festival on 8th October
A total of ten teams in Open and seven in Women took part in round-robin tournaments. Only six out of 6-9 members in the Open and four of 4-5 in the Women's event could play in each round. The tournaments took place at Oradea - Hotel Continental Forum in Oradea, Romania from 21st to 29th September 2022. The time control was 90 minutes/40 moves + 30 minutes + 30 seconds increment per move.
Replay all Open games
Replay all Women games
Final standings in Open
| Rk. | SNo | Team | Games | + | = | - | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 2 | CSU ASE Superbet | 9 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 16 | 0 | 37 |
| 2 | 8 | ACS Sah Club Vados Arad | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 0 | 34,5 |
| 3 | 6 | CS Politehnica Iasi-CSM Iasi 2020 | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 0 | 34 |
| 4 | 5 | ACS Smart Galati | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 11 | 0 | 31 |
| 5 | 10 | CS Victoria-Sparta Techirghiol | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 0 | 27 |
| 6 | 3 | CS Studentesc Medicina Timisoara | 9 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 27 |
| 7 | 9 | CS Universitatea de Vest Timisoara | 9 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 25 |
| 8 | 7 | Clubul de Sah al Municipiului Baia Mare | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 0 | 25 |
| 9 | 4 | Verdi.ro Sah Club Oltenia Craiova | 9 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 20,5 |
| 10 | 1 | CSU Targoviste | 9 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
Final standings in Women
| Rk. | SNo | Team | Games | + | = | - | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 3 | CSU ASE Superbet | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 17,5 |
| 2 | 5 | ACS Arnia IT | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 14 |
| 3 | 2 | CSM Iasi 2020 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 14,5 |
| 4 | 1 | CS Studentesc Medicina Timisoara | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 12,5 |
| 5 | 4 | CSM Bucuresti | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 11,5 |
| 6 | 7 | CSU UVT Timisoara | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 8 |
| 7 | 6 | CSM Sighetu Marmatiei | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
Links
Romanian Chess Federation: Official site, twitter and youtube
