Chigorin Memorial in St. Petersburg

Chigorin Memorial in St. Petersburg

By WGM Irina Sudakova

The entry fee is 1000 Roubles (for juniors under 16, seniors and women 800 Roubles). The prizes were paid out in Russian Roubles, the total prize fund, guaranteed by the St. Petersburg Chess Federation, is 1.4 million Roubles = 32,000 Euros = US $46,000, with 400,000 Roubles = 9,300 Euros or US $13,000 for the rapid chess event. The first prize for the rapid is 75,000 Roubles = 1,700 Euros or US $2,400.

The venue: "Moskva" Hotel located in the city center, in the end of Staronevsky Prospect

The Rapid Chess tournament took place from October 26-27. It was a nine-round Swiss with time controls of 15 minutes per game + 5 seconds increment for each move. There were 274 players in the main tournament, including 68 grandmasters and 23 players rated higher than 2600.

Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin, (born on 12 November 1850 near St. Petersburg, Russia, died on 25 January 1908 in Lublin, Poland) was a leading Russian chess player. He served as a major source of inspiration for the "Soviet school of chess", which dominated the chess world in the middle and latter parts of the 20th century. Overshadowed to some extent in the 1920s by the exciting new theories of the hypermodern movement, Chigorin's influence nevertheless demands a prominent and permanent place in the Soviet chess hegemony of the 20th century. Chigorin has several chess openings or variations of openings named after him, the two most important being the Chigorin Variation of the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Na5) and the Chigorin Defence to the Queen's Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6). Whilst the former has remained popular through the 1900s, the latter struggled to attract devotees until relatively recently. Igor Miladinovic has used the Chigorin Defence with great regularity, but its current revival owes much to the efforts of Alexander Morozevich, who has championed the opening both in play and in his book, The Chigorin Defence According To Morozevich (published 2007).

The festival started with the two-day rapid open, with the prize fund of nearly 10,000 Euros. Six players tied for the first place with 7 points out of 9, and Sergei Yudin (2521) won on tiebreak. Last year’s rapid winner, Zaven Andriassian, came second, and Pablo Lafuente got the third prize, leaving all Elo favorites behind them.

Tournament director Vladimir Bykov, Pablo Lafuente, Sergei Yudin, Zaven Andriassian

• Full list of final rankings

The tournament hall for the leading players

Dmitry Kokarev, Yuri Kuzubov, Sergei Yudin, Alexey Dreev, Denis Yevseev and Davit Petrosian

Andrey Stukopin, best junior under sixteen

These guys prefer rapid chess: Ernesto Inarkiev and Vladislav Tkachiev

Dmitry Kryakvin, who caused a panic on the first day of the rapid tournament

Kryakvin defended a position with rook against rook and knight for about 180 moves before he applied to the arbiter to claim a draw – which was granted after the chief arbiter counted out 50 moves. Thankfully it was the last round of the day and the rest participants didn’t have to wait for the end of this game.

Rustam Khusnutdinov

The classic tournament

This has started, with GM Ivan sokolov in the lead at the moment. Many top GMs have already suffered defeats against weaker participants. You can follow the results and games of the tournament day by day at the official website.

Ranking after round 5 (Tuesday, 02 November 2010)

• Full list of rankings

  
  Ninth: GM Alexander Areshchenko, 2664, UKR, 4.0/5, perf. 2725

  
  Tenth: GM Zaven Andriassian, 2579, ARM, 4.0/5, perf. 2718

  
  Fresh GM Maxim Matlakov, 2613, RUS, 3.5/5, perf. 2447

  
  Aghasi Inants, 2281, ARM, 2.0/5, perf. 2045

Ranking after round 6 – Females

• Full list of rankings

  
  WIM Kateryna Dolzhykova, 2298, UKR, 2.5 /5, perf. 2194

  
  Sofia Zizlova, 16 years old, 2088, RUS, 2.0/5, perf. 2181
  Veronika Minina, 2147, RUS, 1.5/5, perf. 1707

  
  Naruna Chan, 1753, RUS 0.5/5, perf. 1681

Pavel Martynov is selling books under a palm tree

The Neva and Alexander Nevsky Bridge – on a normal St. Petersburg sunless day

Alexander Nevsky, the Grand Duke who lived in the 13th century.

The square where the Moskva hotel is located is named after him. He lookes at the Nevsky prospect, the main street of St. Petersburg, and behind him there is the Holy Trinity Alexander Nevsky Monastery.

The Necropolis of the XVIII century has the graves of statesmen and outstanding St. Petersburg citizens, like the Minister of Finance S.Vitte, Army Minister A. Gorchakov, Euler, K. Rossi, the widow of A. Pushkin, Natalia and others.

The Monastyrka river

Links Official tournament site All games in zipped PGN To read, replay and analyse the PGN games we adivse you to download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light. This program also gives you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.

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