Aronian and Gelfand win Alekhine Memorial 2013

The Alekhine Memorial is taking place from April 20th to May 1st 2013. The first part of the event takes place in Paris, France, (April 21-26, rounds one to five), the second in Saint Petersburg, Russia, (April, 26-May 1, rounds six to nine). The super tournament is dedicated to a great Russian chess player Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine, a citizen of Russia and France, and is held at the initiative and with the support of Russian businessmen Gennady Timchenko and Andrey Filatov. Ten grandmasters from seven countries are playing in the Memorial starts with with five rounds in the Louvre Museum in Paris and ends with four rounds in Saint Michael’s Castle in Saint-Petersburg.

Round nine report

The games of the last round of the Alekhine Memorial were played on May 1st in St. Petersburg. Boris Gelfand had white against Vishy Anand. Last year these players competed for the chess crown in a World Chess Championship match. Their today's game was quiet and ended in a draw on the 40th move.

Levon Aronian played a very aggressive opening against the recent leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The French grandmaster ended up in a severe time trouble and soon committed the decisive error. Thanks to this victory, Levon Aronian, who considers Alexander Alekhine his favorite player, won the Alekhine Memorial.

The longest game of the round was Adams-Kramnik. The Russian grandmaster managed to score his second victory, and finished at 50%.

You can watch a video stream of the final round in the above player.

The main prizes and special prizes were awarded during the closing ceremony.

Levon Aronian receiving his trophy from Ilya Levitov, Executive Director of the Russian Chess Federation

Equal first, second on tiebreak: Israeli GM Boris Gelfand

The prize for a game in Alekhine's style was given to Laurent Fressinet
(by the legendary Mark Taimanov above), for defeating Vladimir Kramnik in Paris.

The best combination prize went to Ding Liren for his victory against the future tournament winner. Boris Gelfand received the best technique prize, and Nikita Vitiugov got the last special prize for the best play during the St. Petersburg half of the tournament.

At the closing ceremony Aronian thanked the sponsors of the event, its organizers and spectators, who showed genuine interest to the tournament and inspired its participants to demonstrate their creative talent.

All the players lined up for a final photo: Maxime, Laurent, Liren, Levon,
Peter, Boris, Vladimir, Nikita, Vishy, Michael – to use first names only

Note: Kamal Suruguchi writes us: "'Anand' is the first name of world champion Viswanathan Anand, not 'Vishy'. Viswanathan is the name of Anand's father. It's customary in Tamil Nadu (from where Anand comes) and some other places in India to write father's name first and then the given name." True, as we ourselves explained back in 2004. In the (Western) chess world, however, friends now tend to universally call him him 'Vishy', and formally 'Mr. Anand'.

Information, photos and videos provided by Mark Gluhovsky, press attaché of the Alekhine Memorial

Final standings

Levon Aronian and Boris Gelfand shared the first place with 5.5 points out of 9. The Armenian grandmaster had a better tie-break score and was awarded the first prize. The Israeli grandmaster took the second place. The reigning World Champion Vishy Anand finished third with 5 points.

In case of equal scores the tournament rules specified the following tiebreal criteria:

• Maximum number of games played with black pieces
• Maximum number of wins
• Direct encounter result
• Koja coefficient
• Sonneborn-Berger score

This put Aronian on top. Both he and Gelfand had five blacks, but Aronian has three wins to Gelfand's two. The prize for a game in Alekhine's style was given to Laurent Fressinet, who defeated Vladimir Kramnik in Paris. The best combination prize went to Ding Liren for his victory against the ultimate tournament winner. Boris Gelfand received the best technique prize, and Nikita Vitiugov got the last special prize for the best play during the St. Petersburg half of the tournament.

Live chess ratings (inofficial) from 02 May 2013, 01:29 GMT

The following analysis of a round nine game that became the key to Aronian's victory was provided by Chess Today, the first Internet-based daily Chess newspaper.

Replay all games from the final round

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Alekhine Memorial 2013 – Schedule, pairings and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN All games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.