Kurnosov leads at Aeroflot Open 2009

2/20/2009 – In recent years, the Aeroflot Open in Moscow (February 17–26) has become established as the world's strongest open tournament. The top section is limited to players rated 2550 or over – and has 76 participants of whom only seven are not GMs. The prize fund is 70,000 Euros, with 21,000 going to the winner. After three rounds Igor Kurnosov leads with 3.0 points. Games and results.

ChessBase 15 - Mega package ChessBase 15 - Mega package

Find the right combination! ChessBase 15 program + new Mega Database 2020 with 8 million games and more than 80,000 master analyses. Plus ChessBase Magazine (DVD + magazine) and CB Premium membership for 1 year!

More...

The Awesome Aeroflot Returns

This year, the Aeroflot Open in Moscow returns once again to its now-traditional venue, the tourist and hotel complex "Izmailovo". The nine-round Swiss event takes place between 16 February (arrival date) and 27 February (departure date), with the rounds being played between 17-25 February inclusive. On 26 February, a qualification tournament will take place, for the 2009 World Blitz Championship. The total prize fund for the top group is Euro 70,000, with the winner taking home Euro 21,000, plus a place in the Dortmund tournament, to be held later this year.

The top section of the event is limited to players rated 2550 or over. The 76-player field includes only seven players who are not GMs, three of them being WGMs. The top seed is Shakryar Mamedyarov, and the strength of the event is shown by the fact that Loek van Wely, one of the few Western GMs to have been a regular at the Aeroflot,  is seeded just 28th! Bacrot, Naiditsch and Milov are the other leading non-Russian/USSR representatives, whilst Ian Nepomniashy is one of the former winners, who has returned to challenge for top honours once again.

The official tournament website has seen some "interesting " features in past years, most notably the days when the games were presented in the form of scanned copies of the players' handwritten scoresheets! Dr Robert Hubner, and others with a taste for papyrology, might have been able to make sense of the games, but lesser mortals had rather a hard time. Happily, those days are past, and this year, the site has the games of each round posted very promptly, using the increasingly standard "Chess Theatre" display system. Less impressively, however, the official site seems not yet to have awoken to the existence of the digital camera, and consequently we find ourselves devoid of photographic images of any kind.

After four rounds, the lead in the tournament is held by Igor Kurnosov, whom regular readers of the ChessBase news page will know as the winner of the recent Hastings tournament. Kurnosov is the only player on 3/3, and is followed by Mamedyarov, Moiseenko, Tomashevsky and Grachev, on 2.5. Naiditsch and Bacrot are among those on 2, but van Wely has made a disastrous start with just 0.5/3, and is languishing on board 37, in Friday's fourth round pairings.

Standings after three rounds

# Player FED Rtng Pts. Perf. w-We
1 GM Kurnosov, Igor 3.0 RUS 2602 3298 +1.35
2 GM Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 2.5 AZE 2724 2853 +0.42
3 GM Moiseenko, Alexander 2.5 UKR 2676 2870 +0.67
4 GM Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2.5 RUS 2664 2865 +0.70
5 GM Grachev, Boris 2.5 RUS 2655 2859 +0.72
6 GM Bacrot, Etienne 2.0 FRA 2722 2714 -0.04
7 GM Naiditsch, Arkadij 2.0 GER 2693 2734 +0.16
8 GM Vitiugov, Nikita 2.0 RUS 2687 2728 +0.16
9 GM Sargissian, Gabriel 2.0 ARM 2677 2705 +0.10
10 GM Smirin, Ilia 2.0 ISR 2647 2686 +0.15
11 GM Aleksandrov, Aleksej 2.0 BLR 2636 2698 +0.23
12 GM Zvjaginsev, Vadim 2.0 RUS 2636 2701 +0.25
13 GM Riazantsev, Alexander 2.0 RUS 2634 2686 +0.20
14 GM Kazhgaleyev, Murtas 2.0 KAZ 2630 2696 +0.26
15 GM So, Wesley 2.0 PHI 2627 2662 +0.12
16 GM Landa, Konstantin 2.0 RUS 2626 2722 +0.37
17 GM Petrosian, Tigran L. 2.0 ARM 2623 2657 +0.13
18 GM Lysyj, Igor 2.0 RUS 2620 2754 +0.53
19 GM Potkin, Vladimir 2.0 RUS 2613 2711 +0.39
20 GM Zhou, Jianchao 2.0 CHN 2612 2744 +0.53
21 GM Ehlvest, Jaan 2.0 USA 2595 2696 +0.41
22 GM Smirnov, Pavel 2.0 RUS 2579 2805 +0.91
23 GM Romanov, Evgeny 2.0 RUS 2576 2786 +0.85
24 GM Zhigalko, Andrey 2.0 BLR 2572 2783 +0.85
25 GM Grigoriants, Sergey 2.0 RUS 2565 2769 +0.83
26 GM Safarli, Eltaj 2.0 AZE 2564 2769 +0.83
27 IM Ponkratov, Pavel 2.0 RUS 2557 2744 +0.76
28 GM Dziuba, Marcin 2.0 POL 2556 2751 +0.80
29 GM Melkumyan, Hrant 2.0 ARM 2519 2747 +0.93
30 GM Dreev, Alexey 1.5 RUS 2688 2551 -0.55
31 GM Amonatov, Farrukh 1.5 TJK 2647 2568 -0.32
32 GM Bareev, Evgeny 1.5 RUS 2645 2565 -0.33
33 GM Mamedov, Rauf 1.5 AZE 2638 2563 -0.30
34 GM Li, Chao b 1.5 CHN 2628 2546 -0.34
35 GM Nepomniachtchi, Ian 1.5 RUS 2628 2559 -0.29
36 GM Pashikian, Arman 1.5 ARM 2621 2538 -0.34
37 GM Akobian, Varuzhan 1.5 USA 2619 2521 -0.41
38 GM Ghaem Maghami, Ehsan 1.5 IRI 2604 2610 +0.02
39 GM Huzman, Alexander 1.5 ISR 2602 2551 -0.20
40 GM Vaganian, Rafael A 1.5 ARM 2596 2582 -0.05
41 GM Zhigalko, Sergei 1.5 BLR 2587 2696 +0.44
42 GM Khairullin, Ildar 1.5 RUS 2574 2605 +0.13
43 GM Chuprov, Dmitry 1.5 RUS 2571 2547 -0.10
44 GM Shomoev, Anton 1.5 RUS 2567 2673 +0.43
45 GM Andriasian, Zaven 1.5 ARM 2564 2644 +0.32
46 GM Kotsur, Pavel 1.5 KAZ 2563 2638 +0.31
47 GM Sjugirov, Sanan 1.5 RUS 2562 2578 +0.06
48 IM Yudin, Sergei 1.5 RUS 2562 2646 +0.34
49 GM Filippov, Anton 1.5 UZB 2556 2634 +0.33
50 GM Dyachkov, Sergej 1.5 RUS 2553 2610 +0.23
51 GM Maslak, Konstantin 1.5 RUS 2541 2622 +0.34
52 WGM Shen, Yang 1.5 CHN 2448 2574 +0.51
53 GM Onischuk, Alexander 1.0 USA 2659 2456 -0.82
54 GM Predojevic, Borki 1.0 BIH 2650 2435 -0.87
55 GM Rodshtein, Maxim 1.0 ISR 2650 2438 -0.86
56 GM Bocharov, Dmitry 1.0 RUS 2647 2432 -0.86
57 GM Volkov, Sergey 1.0 RUS 2627 2425 -0.82
58 GM Bartel, Mateusz 1.0 POL 2594 2503 -0.36
59 GM Maze, Sebastien 1.0 FRA 2578 2498 -0.31
60 IM Chadaev, Nikolai 1.0 RUS 2568 2498 -0.28
61 GM Li, Shilong 1.0 CHN 2559 2455 -0.41
62 GM Vazquez Igarza, Renier 1.0 ESP 2558 2453 -0.41
63 GM Zherebukh, Yaroslav 1.0 UKR 2558 2509 -0.19
64 GM Minasian, Artashes 1.0 ARM 2557 2510 -0.18
65 GM Zhou, Weiqi 1.0 CHN 2542 2509 -0.12
66 GM Grigoryan, Avetik 1.0 ARM 2506 2432 -0.29
67 GM Wen, Yang 1.0 CHN 2504 2480 -0.09
68 IM Kosintseva, Tatiana 1.0 RUS 2497 2496 +0.01
69 IM Ipatov, Alexander 1.0 ESP 2493 2464 -0.11
70 GM Ajrapetjan, Yuriy 1.0 UKR 2490 2456 -0.12
71 GM Milov, Vadim 0.5 SUI 2669 2297 -1.41
72 GM Van Wely, Loek 0.5 NED 2625 2278 -1.32
73 GM Kotanjian, Tigran 0.5 ARM 2568 2254 -1.17
74 GM Ragger, Markus 0.5 AUT 2540 2348 -0.67
75 IM Kosintseva, Nadezhda 0.5 RUS 2486 2347 -0.46
76 IM Salem, A.R. Saleh 0.5 UAE 2473 2286 -0.65
77 IM Robson, Ray 0.5 USA 2455 2299 -0.52
78 GM Gajewski, Grzegorz 0.0 POL 2581 1845 -1.51

Vitiugov,Nikita - Maze,Sebastien
 Aeroflot Open 2009 Moscow (1.5), 2009
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.f4 Bg7 8.Bb5+ Nfd7 9.Nf3 0–0 10.0–0 a6 11.Bd3 b5 12.Kh1 Re8 13.a3 c4 14.Bc2 Nc5 15.f5 Nbd7 16.Bg5 Bf6 17.h4 Ne5 18.Nxe5 Rxe5

19.fxg6 Bxg5 20.gxf7+ Kf8 21.Qh5 Bd7 22.Qxh7 Bf6 23.Rf4 Bh3 24.Raf1 Nd7 25.gxh3 1–0.

Report compiled by Steve Giddins

Links
<< Linares R1: Anand defeats Radjabov in 61-move struggle
Sofia R4: Kamsky strikes back – wins in 73 moves >>
Discussion and Feedback Join the public discussion or submit your feedback to the editors

See also

World Cup: Radjabov wins World Cup in blitz!

10/4/2019 – Teimour Radjabov qualified to the next Candidates Tournament by knocking out Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the classical phase of the World Cup semi-finals, which meant he had an extra rest day heading into the final match against Ding Liren. In parallel, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is facing Yu Yangyi in the match for third place. Live games and commentary from 10:0 UTC (12 Noon CEST / 6:00 AM EDT). | Photo: FIDE
More...
 100

See also

Sinquefield Cup Ultimate moves and Closing Ceremony

8/29/2019 – The 2019 Sinquefield Cup playoff ended up with Ding Liren beating world champion Magnus Carlsen to win the title and take home $82.500. After two draws in the rapid games, the Chinese star beat Carlsen in both blitz encounters. The commentators and the world champion deservedly praised Ding's performance. Express report. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
More...
 112

Video

The Elephant Gambit

The Elephant Gambit (1.e4.e5 2.Nf3 d5!?) has never really been given the attention it deserves. It is a very useful surprise weapon. Let us list the advantages of playing this particular opening: 1) Shock value 2) It is very aggressive. Black can take over the initiative early. 3) Many tricky lines 4) Unorthodox. Black is basically taking the game to the opponent as early as move two. Not many openings do that! It's a perfect opening for young players and club players to adopt. Let Andrew Martin select a repertoire for you on this 60 mins, which, if used with discretion, will rack up the points. I am sure that you will enjoy this unusual tour of the Elephant Gambit.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register