Pictorial review of Aerosvit-2008

By WGM Anastasiya Karlovich

The Aerosvit-2008 tournament, which was conducted in the sanatorium complex “Foros” in the settlement Foros of the AR Crimea, finished 19th of June with convincing victory of a young Norwegian talent, who was able to fix first place one days earlier then the official end of the tournament was.

All fans, realtives and journalists moved to press center to watch the games of the last round

TV screens with games. During the tournament more then 100,000 people visited the official web site of the Aerosvit tournament. There were mostly from USA and European countries.

Karjakin is ready to play for a win and for second place...

...but Magnus Carlsen doesn't want to give that chance to the opponent

The key game of the tournament: Sergey Karjakin vs Magnus Carlsen

Another important game in the last round, which fixed the places of the prize winners

A tough game for Pavel Eljanov – Vasiliy Ivanchuk is always a difficult opponent for him; the +3 score for Ivanchuk proves it

Ivanchuk's relaxed fight for second place

Andrey Volokitin before his game with Evgeniy Alekseev. This victory brought him the special prize “for the best ending”

Aleksei Shirov on his way to the next win, with black against Onishuk. Shirov set up the absolute record of decided games: only three out of eleven finished in a draw.

This game between Svidler Peter and Loek Van Wely ended in a draw, because Loek did not find better continuation on his 30th move

The official commentator of the event, GM Mikhail Golubev, discusses the games with GM Dmitri Yakovenko (seated) and the editor-in-chief of the popular Russian magazine “64” Mark Glukhovski

Andrey Volokitin chats with Mark Gluhovskiy

A film crew makes a movie with Magnus Carsen and his father in Foros. A number of Norwegian journalists visited the tournament, on the 15th of June journalists from “New York Times” turned up to shoot a photo spread with the Norwegian talent, which will be the part of the big general report about him.

At the closing ceremony Alexei Shirov receives a special prize for “the best attack” in his game against Dmitri Yakovenko. The special prize for "the largest number of wins with black” was divided between Magnus Carsen, Alexei Shirov, Vasiliy Ivanchuk and Pavel Eljanov. The prize for “the best endgame” was taken by Andrey Volokitin.

The press conference with Ivanchuk and Carlsen after the closing ceremony


Magnus gives an interview to a Norwegian journalist – a great opportunity to speak Norwegian in Ukraine

An interview with winner of the “Aerosvit 2008”

... one with runner up Vasily Ivanchuk

Group photo of all the participantst, arbiters and sponsors

The father of Magnus, Henrik Carlen, with Loek Van Wely during the closing banquet. Magnus didn't give many interviews and left the hall soon after the ceremony, because of the EURO-2008 football match between Portugal and Germany. It is well known he is a big fan of soccer and couldn't miss such an interesting game. Who was his favorite? Let's keep that a secret…

Sergey Kariakin and Pavel Eljanov

Short interview with Sergey Karjakin

Sergey answered some of my questions consierning his play in Foros and participating in a match with Nigel Short.

Well, it was not as good as last year, because in the previous Aerosvit I took the second place. But in any case to be a prize winner is always a place of honour.

I think the most difficult was the game against Svidler. White developed big initiative on the kingside, and it was difficult to defend. The most interesting game was against Shirov in round six. He sacrificed his knight and then his queen for a rook and bishop.

It's always good if the organizers make such prizes. I definitely support this idea..

After two weeks I'll be taking part in a match against Nigel Short. The match will be conducted in the capital of Ukraine, the city of Kiev – ten rapid games in five days. At first the organizers wanted to keep classic time controls, but as rapid chess matches are becoming popular they changed their mind and decided to go for rapid time controls in our match.

Well, if we look to the rating list we can see my Elo is 80 points higher then Short's. But of course Nigel Short is very strong player, and I'll have to prepare for the match very seriously.

Yes, I am. But I am not telling you anything specific because I don't want my opponents to know about it.

The little Aerosvit plane on the shores of the Black Sea

About the author Anastasiya (Nastja) Karlovich was Ukrainian champion and vice-champion among girls under 16, 18 and 20. She was European Champion with the Ukrainian team in the Youth Team Championships. She is also a candidate officer in the National Law Academy “Yaroslav the Wise”, a member of the chess club “Law Academy” a member of the German club Grosslehna one of the organisers of WGM and GM closed tournaments “Cup of Rector”. a Woman Grandmaster since 2003

Links Official tournament web site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program to read, replay and analyse the PGN games.