Alekhine Memorial starts with a bang

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.

The participants

The opening ceremony ceremony took place in a chess pavilion, which was specially built for the tournament on the territory of the Tuileries Garden (the Louvre Museum).

Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand (3rd and 2nd from right) at the press conference, which included Anatoly Karpov (left), main sponsor Andrei Filatov (2nd from left) and Ilya Levitov (middle), the Russian chess Federation CEO.

All the players lined up on the stage: Vachier-Lagrave, Liren, Svidler,
Anand, Aronian, Kramnik, Fressinet, Adams, Vitiugov, Gelfand

The conference was followed by a concert performed by two outstanding Russian musicians – Nikolai Lugansky (piano) and Vadim Repin (violin) who offered the audience pieces composed by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Watch the opening ceremony on this video stream from the official web site

Round one report

Svidler, Peter - Gelfand, Boris ½-½

There are portraits of the players in the live video coverage

The easiest way to summarize this game is tactics, tactics, tactics. If you're looking to challenge your brain on tactical continuation then simply put this on a chessboard and have a go at it. With most pieces on the board White's king was on f4, Black had the disadvantage of a rook for two minor pieces and after some forced trades the game surprisingly ended peacefully.

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxim - Fressinet, Laurent ½-½
The two strongest Frenchmen (above Vachier-Lagrave) played a very solid draw and will be thrown into the fire tomorrow.

Ding Liren - Aronian, Levon 1-0

The three-time Chinese champion (above) is currently missing his appointment in Xinghua, where he could have tried to defend his title for a fourth consecutive time. However, he is here meddling with the best, and he begins by proving his invitation was no accident. A nice positional game led to some fireworks as Ding sacrificed first an exchange and then a full rook to bust open Black's king position. White needed just some quiet moves to bring his last attacker to the fray with decisive effect. Watching the game, Kasparov predicted that that would be exactly Black's fate... and he predicted it before move 28! Guest annotator GM Giorgi Margvelashvili has a full report on this game below.

Kramnik, Vladimir - Vitiugov, Nikita 1-0

The positional superiority of Kramnik (above) was without question. His two knights were clearly superior to Vitiugov's bishops and this allowed him an initiative on the queenside. Under intense pressure, Vitiugov allowed a surprising but decisive break which let White's a-pawn become unstoppable as it was being supported by the queen, while Black's g6 bishop was dormant. Giorgi also has full annotations for us!

Vladimir Kramnik in the press conference after the game

Anand, Vishy - Adams, Michael 0-1

Kasparov: "I like the bishops!" He was referring to the position after Black's 21st move, and as expected from the first man in history to break 2800, he was absolutely right. Black's bishops dominated the scene and forced Anand to trade them off, but that left him in an inferior rook endgame. It's possible that White still had a way out of it, but Anand couldn't find it and Adams converted a full point after his lone rook was more than a match for White's three passed pawns since two of them were doubled.

Summary by GM Alejandro Ramirez

Replay all games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

You can watch live video of the games, with GM commentary in English, in the above player. Video streams of past rounds can be reviewed on this page. Information and videos provided by Mark Gluhovsky, press attaché of the Alekhine Memorial

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.