AEROFLOT round seven – a fight for every point!

Report from Moscow by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal

The 13th edition of the Aeroflot Open 2016 is being held in Moscow, Russia from the 29th of February to 10th of March 2016. The official hotel of the event is Cosmos and the playing venue is also located at the same place. There are three tournaments that are simultaneously taking place: The A Group (2550 and above); the B Group (2300 and above), and the C Group (below 2300).

Two gladiators sat across the board, hands to their head, fighting as intensely as possible. The clock showed 10.30 p.m. – 7 hours and 30 minutes since the game had begun. Boris Gelfand had an extra pawn in the queen endgame against Boris Grachev and was trying his best to convert the position into a full point. Both the players were tired and hungry, but their focus was completely on the game. The checks had to be evaded, the pawns had to be carefully advanced, and perpetuals had to be taken care off. Like a surgeon, Gelfand did that and after 119 moves – Grachev had nothing better but to throw in the towel. This was the top board story of the sixth round. But what it showed is the extreme difficulty with which each point has to be earned at the Aeroflot Open 2016. Every win is worth its weight in gold.

A very interesting piece of statistics – after seven rounds none of the top ten seeds has lost a game, and none of these ten players has scored two consecutive wins in rounds six and seven! Isn’t this amazing? It only shows that with the time control of 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move, you can see more accurate chess. Difficult positions are saved and blunders are rare. That being said playing such long games is taking a toll on the energy levels of the players. They have the time on their clocks but their energy levels are lacking. That is the reason why the seventh round saw quite a few blunders being made by the players.

Boris Savchenko – Jorden van Foreest

Black’s position doesn’t particularly look appetizing but it is far from being lost. Here the talented Dutch player saw nothing wrong in taking the pawn with 22…Qxe5. Well, I hope you spotted it pretty quickly why that is a huge blunder.

Jorden must be kicking himself for that error, but such things happen even to the best in the business

Let’s turn up the difficulty level a little. Here is a position between two young grandmasters, just four moves before one of them resigned:

Axel Bachmann – Vladimir Fedoseev

Just like van Foreest, Bachmann here thought that he could pick up the pawn on e4 with 33.Bxe4. He was, of course, mistaken. Can you see why that move loses? Don’t check the solution until you have found the answer. It is quite pretty!

With his victory over Axel Bachmann, Vladimir Fedoseev is one of the leaders with 5.0/7

Boris Gelfand couldn’t break Maxim Matlakov’s Ragozin Defence,
and had to settle for a draw. Boris is currently on 5.0/7.

Maxim Matlakov: with wins over Bartosz Socko, Denis Khismatullin and Robert
Hovhannisyan, Maxim is all set for a strong finish

Sasikiran Krishnan drew a highly favourable position against Ernesto Inarkiev in the seventh round.
In spite of that he is on 4.5/7 and a win in last two rounds would be good enough for a top finish.

Five consecutive draws! Francisco Vallejo Pons doesn’t seem to be too impressed with his performance!

Baadur Jobava comes to the tournament hall, greets his neighbour, hangs his coat on his chair,
explains to the photographer this is his board and gets ready for his game against Vladimir Potkin!

With Ruslan Ponomariov (right) paying a visit to the tournament venue today,
we had two ex-FIDE World Champions in the playing hall

The ultra-creative player from Moscow, Vadim Zvjaginsev

Here is a small trivia for you: Zvjaginsev is famed for unorthodox opening play. One of his openings has become quite famous. Which opening is that and how is it related to Khalifman and Ponomariov (pictured above)? Write down your answers in the comments section below.

Wei Yi is on 4.0/7 and losing ten Elo points

In one of the rounds Salem Saleh arrived to the tournament hall, fully armed with water and drinks, only to find out that other players have taken the table where he was supposed to be playing against his opponent! The arbiters instead of shifting everyone made arrangement for him to sit on another board.

In the seventh round Sergei Azarov forgot to ask a basic question before making his move: what is my opponent’s threat? The GM from UAE punished him severely for that.

Salem Saleh – Sergei Azarov

White has just played his rook from a6 to a5. Turn on your prophylactic thinking and find out what exactly White is threatening. Based on that what is Black’s best move? In the game Azarov continued with the move …Qc6. Why was that a mistake?

Alexander Moiseenko showed some powerful calculation to get the better of Emilio Cordova

On a lower board of the tournament the current Russian Women Champion Aleksandra Goryachkina (above) was paired against the current Iranian National Champion Alireza Firouzja. Goryachkina won that game.

IM Eesha Karavade scored a win against GM Debashis Das in round six and is currently on 2.5/7

Standings after round seven

Seventh round standings for Group B – Group C

11-year-old R. Praggnanandhaa (2339) beat Meri Arabidze, Salome Melia, Levon Babujian and seems to be all set to make his second IM norm. He achieved his first norm at the Cannes festival just a week ago. You can read a report on that written by IM Nisha Mohota for the ChessBase India website.

Alina Kashlinskaya is currently on 4.5/7 in the B group event

The gigantic Hotel Cosmos where the Aeroflot Open 2016 is taking place

Just outside the tournament hall you could see youngsters dressed up in colourful attire, portraying characters of fabled tales. It was for the Japanese cultural festival that was taking place in the hotel.

Going from the tournament hall to the washroom was quite an
entertaining walk for the players thanks to them

Traditional outfit vs modern avatar. What do you prefer?

Japanese Samurais!

Overdressed? Our photographer Amruta Mokal with a girl dressed like a queen

Pictures by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Links Official tournament site Download all games in PGN The 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 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.