Aeroflot, Rd. 8: Evgenyi Najer in sole lead again

by Johannes Fischer
3/9/2016 – Eight of nine rounds are played in the Aeroflot Tournament in Moscow and Evgenyi Najer has the best chances to win the tournament. He won in round eight after surviving a harmless opening and a not so harmless speculative piece sacrifice by Vladimir Fedoseev and now leads the field with 6.0/8. Half a point behind follow eight players with 5.5/8 each.

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Aeroflot Open 2016

Photos by 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) which has 83 players. Out of them 67 are grandmasters and the average rating of the tournament is 2585. This is higher than the Qatar Masters which had a rating average of 2529 (although in Doha the rating cut-off was 2300). The top seed of the tournament is Boris Gelfand with an Elo of 2735. Other star attractions are Bu Xiangzhi, Wei Yi and Ian Nepomniachtchi. They will fight for the first place of €18,000. Round begins at 3 p.m. every day and the time control is 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from the first.

  • The B Group (2300 and above) has attracted the most entries – 94. With the participation of 16 grandmasters and 40 International Masters this event has a pretty decent rating average of 2390. The first prize is €8,000. Round begins at 3 p.m. and the time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from the first.

  • 63 players participate in the C Group (below 2300). There are players right from the rating of 2296 down to unrated players. €3,000 is the first prize. Rounds begin every day at 3 p.m. and the time control is 90 minutes for the whole game with an increment of 30 seconds per move from the first. The participants must keep the record of moves till the end of the game.

Round eight

The penultimate round of the Aeroflot Open saw fierce battles because the top players tried hard to position themselves for the final round. One player who again fought hard to win was top seed Boris Gelfand who played with Black against Mateusz Bartel. But after seventy moves of fighting chess both players were forced to admit that all winning chances were a thing of the past:

 

Mateusz Bartel

Boris Gelfand

For Evgenyi Najer things went very well. He played with Black against Vladimir Fedoseev who began the game with a surprising but harmless line against Najer's Caro-Kann but soon after the opening decided that the time was ripe for some tactics and sacrificed a piece. While this speculative piece sacrifice was fundamentally correct Fedoseev failed to find the right follow-up and found himself in a lost position with a piece down. This win allowed Najer to take the sole lead again and if he wins in round nine with White against Gata Kamsky he would also win the tournament.

 

Vladimir Fedoseev

A number of players close to the top tried hard to win their games to catch up to the leaders. One of them was Spanish Grandmaster Francisco Vallejo Pons. Directly after the opening he ventured a speculative piece sacrifice against Rinat Jumabayev but in the end fell victim to a tactical shot by his opponent.

 

Francisco Vallejo Pons

Results

Bo. No.   Name Rtg Pts. Result Pts.   Name Rtg No.
1 27 GM Bartel Mateusz 2625 5 ½ - ½ 5 GM Gelfand Boris 2735 1
2 15 GM Fedoseev Vladimir 2664 5 0 - 1 5 GM Najer Evgeniy 2664 16
3 6 GM Matlakov Maxim 2682 5 ½ - ½ 4½ GM Bu Xiangzhi 2724 2
4 5 GM Nepomniachtchi Ian 2704 4½ ½ - ½ 4½ GM Rakhmanov Aleksandr 2650 20
5 7 GM Inarkiev Ernesto 2677 4½ 0 - 1 4½ GM Kobalia Mikhail 2632 26
6 37 GM Jumabayev Rinat 2607 4½ 1 - 0 4½ GM Vallejo Pons Francisco 2677 8
7 11 GM Kamsky Gata 2673 4½ 1 - 0 4½ GM Goganov Aleksey 2575 52
8 25 GM Dubov Daniil 2634 4½ 1 - 0 4½ GM Moiseenko Alexander 2668 12
9 13 GM Sjugirov Sanan 2667 4½ ½ - ½ 4½ GM Sasikiran Krishnan 2637 23
10 36 GM Wen Yang 2609 4½ 0 - 1 4½ GM Zvjaginsev Vadim 2662 18
11 3 GM Wei Yi 2714 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Bachmann Axel 2609 35
12 10 GM Artemiev Vladislav 2674 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Petrosian Tigran L. 2607 38
13 14 GM Swiercz Dariusz 2665 4 0 - 1 4 GM Eliseev Urii 2601 40
14 17 GM Safarli Eltaj 2663 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Potkin Vladimir 2585 46
15 19 GM Motylev Alexander 2655 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Bocharov Dmitry 2595 42
16 43 GM Dragun Kamil 2594 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Grachev Boris 2639 22
17 44 GM Timofeev Artyom 2593 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Hovhannisyan Robert 2636 24
18 54 GM Lalith Babu M R 2573 4 0 - 1 4 GM Salem A.R. Saleh 2615 31
19 67   Predke Alexandr 2508 4 1 - 0 4 GM Savchenko Boris 2610 34
20 39 GM Bluebaum Matthias 2605 3½ 1 - 0 3½ GM Korobov Anton 2713 4
21 9 GM Jobava Baadur 2676 3½ ½ - ½ 3½ GM Kovalev Vladislav 2560 56
22 45 GM Socko Bartosz 2587 3½ ½ - ½ 3½ GM Khalifman Alexander 2624 28
23 30 GM Lu Shanglei 2620 3½ ½ - ½ 3½ GM Bindrich Falko 2557 58
24 84 IM Martirosyan Haik M. 2425 3½ 1 - 0 3½ GM Bok Benjamin 2611 32
25 33 GM Cordova Emilio 2610 3½ 0 - 1 3½ GM Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. 2506 68

...

Standings

Rk. SNo   Name FED Rtg Pts.  TB1   TB2 
1 16 GM Najer Evgeniy RUS 2664 6,0 4 2643
2 26 GM Kobalia Mikhail RUS 2632 5,5 4 2622
3 1 GM Gelfand Boris ISR 2735 5,5 4 2621
4 27 GM Bartel Mateusz POL 2625 5,5 4 2618
5 18 GM Zvjaginsev Vadim RUS 2662 5,5 4 2613
6 25 GM Dubov Daniil RUS 2634 5,5 4 2597
7 11 GM Kamsky Gata USA 2673 5,5 4 2594
8 37 GM Jumabayev Rinat KAZ 2607 5,5 4 2582
9 6 GM Matlakov Maxim RUS 2682 5,5 3 2647
10 67   Predke Alexandr RUS 2508 5,0 4 2638
11 20 GM Rakhmanov Aleksandr RUS 2650 5,0 4 2622
  31 GM Salem A.R. Saleh UAE 2615 5,0 4 2622
13 5 GM Nepomniachtchi Ian RUS 2704 5,0 4 2610
14 2 GM Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2724 5,0 4 2606
15 13 GM Sjugirov Sanan RUS 2667 5,0 4 2603
16 23 GM Sasikiran Krishnan IND 2637 5,0 4 2585
17 15 GM Fedoseev Vladimir RUS 2664 5,0 4 2584
18 40 GM Eliseev Urii RUS 2601 5,0 4 2554
19 52 GM Goganov Aleksey RUS 2575 4,5 4 2666
20 43 GM Dragun Kamil POL 2594 4,5 4 2643
21 46 GM Potkin Vladimir RUS 2585 4,5 4 2642
22 35 GM Bachmann Axel PAR 2609 4,5 4 2637
23 42 GM Bocharov Dmitry RUS 2595 4,5 4 2625
24 7 GM Inarkiev Ernesto RUS 2677 4,5 4 2621
25 8 GM Vallejo Pons Francisco ESP 2677 4,5 4 2610

... 86 players

Click here for complete results...

Links

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.
 
Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".

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