Jagr regularly scores points

Chronicle of sporting events

Hockey. NHL. Regular season. Rangers -- Philadelphia -- 2:4, Vancouver -- Minnesota -- 2:1 (bullet), Los Angeles -- Islanders -- 4:2 -- Frolov “L” (1+0), Tverdovsky “L” (0+2), Yashin “A” (1+0), Vik. Kozlov “A” (0+1) .

Czech Rangers striker Jaromir Jagr scored points in all three matches of the season using the “goal plus pass” system. Jagr's teammate Brandan Shanahan scored his seventh hundred goals in the regular season and, according to this indicator, shares 14th place in the list of top scorers in the history of the overseas league with Finn Jari Kurri.

Kramnik has a lot of reserves

In the penultimate, 11th game of the World Chess Championship match taking place in Elista, Veselin Topalov failed to use his chance with the white pieces. Vladimir Kramnik again went for the Slavic Defense variation, which he met in the ninth game, where he suffered a crushing defeat. What the team of the classical champion had prepared remained unknown, since the FIDE champion was the first to turn aside on the eighth move, and managed to emerge from the opening with a spatial advantage. However, Vladimir, with an active attack of his knight, showed the futility of Veselin’s hopes and forced him to come to terms with the transition to the endgame, which he, perhaps due to inertia, played contrary to all logic. In the absence of queens, the pawn attack launched by Topalov on the king's side was more of a “psychic” character, and its deliberate fiasco allowed Kramnik to seize the initiative. The Bulgarian had to “run” for a draw. So, the score is still equal - 5.5:5.5. Under this favorable psychological chord for Kramnik, he will enter the last game of the match on Thursday with white pieces. Kramnik also reinforced his chess position with a psychological act, sending an open letter to FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, expressing his disagreement with the technical defeat in the fifth game, in which he proposed to FIDE, as an act of goodwill, to play this game immediately after the end of the 12th game. Kramnik stated that if the decision on the fifth game had any impact on the outcome of the match, he would refuse to recognize Topalov as world champion and would sue FIDE.

Knowing Kramnik’s ability to concentrate on the decisive game, we hope that it won’t come to this. Be that as it may, the intrigue remains. The consequence of this letter may be that even with a draw in the 12th game, Kramnik is not going to put up with the formal score of 6:6 and is ready to refuse a tiebreaker. Oleg STETSKO

Kirilenko played the first game of the season

Exhibition matches have begun in the NBA. Utah forward Andrei Kirilenko spent 12 minutes on the court in his first game of the new season, hitting the Lakers' hoop twice - 4 points. The Jazzmen lost on the road - 79:94. Most basketball players try not to force their preparations and play these matches half-heartedly, which explains the crushing defeat of the reigning champion Miami by Detroit - 64:84 on their court in the presence of 13,700 spectators. Since there are no restrictions on the number of players entered in preseason meetings, Miami coach Pat Riley managed to test a dozen and a half of his players. Ilya TRISVIATSKY

Spartak-Primorye works wonders

Basketball players from the Vladivostok club Spartak-Primorye won their second home match in a row in the Super League. None of the grandees can feel at ease in the Far East. In the first game of the season, the “red-whites” won with a minimal difference in the score of the winner of the ULEB Cup, the capital’s “Dynamo”, and yesterday, also with a margin of one point, they defeated the silver medalist of the Russian championship and the finalist of the National Cup, “Khimki” near Moscow - 79: 78.

For most of the match, the guests were in the lead. They went into the long break with a positive difference of 15 points, and in the penultimate minute of the third quarter, Khimki’s superiority reached even more impressive figures - 65:46. All the fun began in the final period, in which the hosts completely eliminated the deficit that had arisen. The decisive shot was made by 29-year-old Romanian center Virgil Stanescu. In Khimki's response attack, Athens Olympic champion, Argentinean with a Polish passport, Ruben Wolkowyski, made an inaccurate throw from behind the six-meter line. The most productive player for the winners was American attacking defender Willie Dean - 20 points, while Volkovyski scored for Khimki (23). The team of former head coach of the Russian national team Sergei Babkov topped the standings of the “A” division of the super league with a 100% result in two matches. The day before, the Kazan UNICS of Lithuanian Antanas Sireyka and CSK VVS-Samara of the 1988 Seoul Olympic champion Valery Tikhonenko took the start in the championship. The team from the capital of Tatarstan won on their site - 75:60. Ilya TRISVIATSKY

In women's basketball, everything is completely confused

The Department for organizing and conducting the Women's Basketball Super League, headed by the 1992 Barcelona Olympic champion as part of the Commonwealth of Independent States team Irina Sumnikova, announced the renaming of the B division team Lada (Dimitrovgrad) to VBM-SSAU. This extremely heavyweight abbreviation means the union of the Volgaburmash enterprise based on the banks of the Volga and the Samara State Aerospace University. Thus, absolute confusion has arisen in Russian women's basketball, which will be especially difficult for our foreign rivals to understand. The VBM-SSAU club is a multiple national champion and winner of the Euroleague 2005, but the Samara team known by this name was renamed CSKA in the summer. The head of the “big” CSKA, Sergei Kushchenko, transferred the legendary brand to the Volzhanka owner Andrei Ishchuk, which caused serious bewilderment among the fans. Now the name of VBM-SSAU is borne by the farm club of the Samara team. Ilya TRISVIATSKY

Ilya TRISVIATSKY