Alekhine R06: Draws prevail in Saint Petersburg

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 six report

The players took a charter flight from Paris to Saint Petersburg where, after two rest days, they continue their fight at the Alekhine Memorial. The Russians held their own inauguration ceremony for their part of the tournament:

Glinka, Balakirev, Tchaikovsky are just some of the famous composers from Saint Petersbug

FIDE president Kirsan Ilyuzhimov flew in for the concerto and to give Kramnik opening advice...

...While Anand and his wife Aruna keep an eye on them

The players went for a positional and somewhat passive approach today and most of the games were nothing too exciting. Hopefully the fire that they had in Paris will be rekindled soon.

Fressinet, Laurent - Vitiugov, Nikita 1/2-1/2
A symmetrical variation in the English left White with perhaps a little less than nothing. After simplifying into a rook ending the game was drawn without anything actually happening but mass simplification.

Levon, Aronian - Adams, Michael 1/2-1/2
Definitely the highlight of the day. Aronian sacrificed a piece for very murky compensation that was granted by Black's exposed king. However this was certainly not enough, and the attack was slowly repelled. In time trouble, Adams is one move away from sealing the game, but he makes a crucial mistake and out of nowhere White's remaining pieces coordinated and start threatening the Black king. Adams simplified into a rook endgame but it wasn't sufficient to win.

Aronian has just played his last hope, while Vachier and Gelfand take a quick glance after drawing their game

Vachier Lagrave, Maxime - Gelfand, Boris 1/2-1/2
A symmetrical game ended in a completely locked pawn structure with no winning chances. Maybe White had a slight pull out of the opening, but Gelfand was never in any danger.

Ding Liren - Svidler, Peter 1/2-1/2
A bizarre game that had many unusual looking moves (6...h5, 8.Rb1!?) surprisingly also ended in a locked up position in which White had a symbolic advantage with his control of the b-file but that clearly was going nowhere, so the players agreed to a draw.

Kramnik-Anand 1/2-1/2
Kramnik at some point was able to win a queen for a rook, bishop and pawn. However Black's position remained extremely solid, and by move 25 it was clear that Kramnik would most likely never break through. This was exactly what happened, and only eight moves later the Russian gave up a piece to force a perpetual.

Standings

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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.