Morozevich approaches escape velocity in Sarajevo

The Bosnia Sarajevo tournament is taking place from May 23rd to June 2nd, 2008, with the rounds starting at 13:30h CEST. The event has been organised by the Sarajevo Chess Club “Bosna”, the venue is the Concert Hall of House of Army. It is a six-player double round robin, with an additional “B” tournament taking place (average Elo 2445). The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves, with 30 seconds' increment per move, then 15 minutes + 30 seconds/move for the rest of the game. The games are being broadcast on Playchess.com.

In the lead (to put it mildly) in Sarajevo: Russian GM Alexander Morozevich

Standings after seven rounds

The site Live Top List tracks chess ratings of players over 2700 on a daily basis (by Hans Arild Runde). According to the latest calculations the world rankings at this moment, after eight rounds in Sarajevo and all other relevant tournaments, would look like this:

Rank	Player	Rating	Change	games	events	born
01	Anand	2798,1	-4,9	2	1	1969
02	Morozevich	2789,1	+15,1	16	2	1977
03	Kramnik	2788,0	0	0	0	1975
04	Ivanchuk	2780,5	+40,5	25	3	1969
05	Topalov	2777,0	+10	10	1	1975
06	Carlsen	2775,4	+10,4	16	3	1990
07	Radjabov	2744,1	-6,9	31	3	1987
08	Mamedyarov	2742,1	-9,9	23	2	1985
09	Shirov	2741,4	+1,4	11	2	1972
10	Leko	2741,0	0	0	0	1979
11	Svidler	2738,0	-8	32	3	1976
12	Aronian	2737,1	-25,9	11	2	1982
13	Adams	2734,5	+5,5	20	2	1971
14	Grischuk	2728,2	+12,2	21	2	1983
15	Movsesian	2727,6	+32,6	43	6	1978
16	Karjakin	2727,3	-4,7	27	3	1990
17	Gelfand	2721,5	-1,5	9	1	1968
18	Kamsky	2720,1	-5,9	22	2	1974
19	Ponomariov	2717,6	-1,4	10	1	1983
20	Eljanov	2717,1	+30,1	19	3	1983

Or, if you prefer a graphic view:

On Monday night we will know if Alexander Morozevich has reached escape velocity and is on a trajectory out of the solar system. We will keep tracking his orbital data.