Safarli wins the Chigorin Memorial in St. Petersburg

11/15/2010 – The 17th International Chigorin Memorial Chess Festival was a very strong open that included ten players from the top 100, and – can you guess? – none of these was able to win. That was achieved by GM Eltaj Safarli of Azerbaijan, who scored 7.5/9 points with a 2787 performance. We bring you games and results – and an extensive pictorial report by Irina Sudakova and Elena Mikheeva.

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Chigorin Memorial in St. Petersburg

By WGM Irina Sudakova and Elena Mikheeva

The 17th International Chess Festival “M. Chigorin Memorial” took place in St. Petersburg, Russia, from October 26 to November 5, 2010. The Rapid section finished with six players tying for the first place with 7.0 points out of 9, and Sergei Yudin (2521) winning on tiebreak. We reported on that section with an extensive pictorial. The first prize for the rapid was 75,000 Roubles = 1,700 Euros or US $2,400.


The sole winner of the 17th International Chigorin Memorial was Eltaj Safarli
from Azerbaijan, with 7.5 points out of 9 games. His performance: 2787.

Ivan Sokolov was leading from the beginning scoring 6 wins in a row, but in round 7 Eltaj managed to defeat him and kept the success with two draws in the end. There were no anti-draw rules applied at the Memorial, so some (but not many) games in the last rounds were over after 10-15 minutes. A score of +5 was good enough for a small group of players who shared the 2nd-7th places, and they clearly wanted to avoid any risk in the last round. But it also meant that they had to win at least five games out of eight preceding this one!


Top scorers (with the St. Petersburg Chess Federation Vice Presidents): Igor Blechzin,
Ivan Sokolov, Yuri Yakovlev, Vladimir Bykov, Eltaj Safarli, Alexander Areshchenko.

Final standings (after nine rounds)

# 
Name
Fed.
Rtng
Pts
TPR
W-We
BH
HiLo
1 GM Safarli, Eltaj 7.5 AZE 2607 2787 +1.99 53.0 42.0
2 GM Sokolov, Ivan 7.0 BIH 2641 2772 +1.50 56.5 44.0
3 GM Areshchenko, Alexander 7.0 UKR 2664 2755 +1.03 53.5 41.0
4 GM Andreikin, Dmitry 7.0 RUS 2669 2711 +0.58 52.5 40.5
5 GM Dreev, Alexey 7.0 RUS 2649 2725 +0.92 52.0 40.5
6 GM Sakaev, Konstantin 7.0 RUS 2607 2750 +1.69 51.5 40.5
7 IM Fedoseev, Vladimir 7.0 RUS 2477 2742 +3.14 51.0 40.5
8 GM Smirin, Ilia 6.5 ISR 2657 2700 +0.60 54.0 43.0
9 GM Zhigalko, Sergei 6.5 BLR 2640 2684 +0.60 54.0 42.5
10 GM Grachev, Boris 6.5 RUS 2668 2693 +0.38 53.0 42.0
11 GM Andriasian, Zaven 6.5 ARM 2579 2722 +1.82 52.5 41.5
12 GM Savchenko, Boris 6.5 RUS 2627 2683 +0.76 52.5 40.5
13 GM Khairullin, Ildar 6.5 RUS 2620 2631 +0.29 52.0 40.5
14 GM Chadaev, Nikolai 6.5 RUS 2574 2680 +1.38 50.5 40.0
15 GM Khismatullin, Denis 6.5 RUS 2654 2613 -0.24 49.5 38.5
16 IM Demchenko, Anton 6.5 RUS 2529 2665 +1.74 49.0 39.0
17 IM Papin, Vasily 6.5 RUS 2534 2632 +1.30 48.5 38.0
18 GM Volkov, Sergey 6.5 RUS 2595 2654 +0.80 48.5 37.5
19 GM Burmakin, Vladimir 6.5 RUS 2593 2564 -0.11 47.0 36.5
20 GM Stefansson, Hannes 6.5 ISL 2585 2639 +0.74 47.0 36.5
21 GM Yemelin, Vasily 6.5 RUS 2571 2587 +0.30 45.5 35.5
22 GM Swiercz, Dariusz 6.5 POL 2507 2560 +0.74 45.0 34.5
23 IM Geller, Jakov 6.5 RUS 2544 2597 +0.76 44.5 34.0
24 GM Matlakov, Maxim 6.5 RUS 2613 2565 -0.29 44.0 34.5
25 GM Kryakvin, Dmitry 6.5 RUS 2591 2505 -0.71 42.0 32.5


Dmitry Andreikin, RUS, 2669, was 4th on tie-breaks, with 7.0/9 and a 2711 performance


Hannes Stefansson of Iceland, 6.5/9


Sergey Zhigalko of Belarus, 6.5/9


Great debut: Dariusz Swiercz, the youngest GM of Poland, with 6.5/9


Dmitry Svetushkin of Moldova, 6.0/9


Life was not easy for the Elo -favorite Anton Korobov, and his
5.5 points was obviously not the result he had expected


Yuri Kuzubov in a good mood, despite his disappointing performance (5.5/9, 2542 perf.)


Krisztian Szabo of Hungary, 5.0/9


Davit Petrosian of Armenia, 5.5/9


Yaroslav Zherebukh, Ukraine, 5.5/9 with a 2477 performance


Egor Kuzmin, twelve years old, 4.0/9


Another unidentified very youthful player


Mothers waiting in the lobby for their youngsters


Vladislav Kovalev, 5.0/9 with an IM norm – playing blitz in the lobby


The queue at the "cash-point" to pick up prizes

Top women (after nine rounds)

# 
Name
Fed.
Rtng
Pts
TPR
W-We
BH
HiLo
54 WGM Paikidze, Nazi 5.5 GEO 2376 2563 +2.35 46.5 38.5
57 IM Ovod, Evgenija 5.5 RUS 2401 2480 +1.06 46.0 36.5
58 IM Bodnaruk, Anastasia 5.5 RUS 2399 2512 +1.47 46.0 36.0
88 WIM Charochkina, Daria 5.0 RUS 2303 2418 +1.29 45.5 35.0
95 WIM Ivkina, Olga 5.0 RUS 2251 2433 +1.99 44.0 34.0
106 IM Ushenina, Anna 5.0 UKR 2466 2418 -0.48 42.5 33.5
115 WGM Demina, Julia 5.0 RUS 2336 2307 -0.19 39.0 31.5
128 WIM Akatova, Ekaterina 4.5 RUS 2260 2380 +1.30 45.0 35.0
135 WIM Komiagina, Maria 4.5 RUS 2263 2334 +0.57 43.5 33.5
138 WIM Ambartsumova, Karina 4.5 RUS 2302 2318 +0.17 42.5 33.5
144 WIM Butuc, Maria 4.5 RUS 2180 2205 +0.28 41.0 32.5
162 WGM Shaydullina, Sandugach 4.0 RUS 2175 2333 +1.67 45.0 35.5
163 WIM Tarasova, Viktoriya 4.0 RUS 2298 2309 -0.01 44.5 34.5
173 Sukhareva, Evgeniya 4.0 RUS 2176 2201 +0.27 40.5 31.0
186 WIM Dolzhykova, Kateryna 4.0 UKR 2298 2244 -0.68 37.5 28.5
188 WIM Sazonova, Elena N. 4.0 RUS 2118 2181 +0.58 36.0 27.5
190 WIM Bronnikova, Elizaveta 4.0 RUS 2270 2163 -1.28 35.5 27.0
196 WIM Solovjova, Valentina 4.0 RUS 2253 2075 -1.99 33.5 25.0


Nazi Paikidze, 5.5/9 with a 2563 performance – best woman in the field


Elizaveta Bronnikova, 4.0/9


Anna Ushenina of Ukraine, 5.0/9


Elmira Mirzoeva, sports journalist on Russian TV and radio – still eager to play chess!


Me – Irina Sudakova, WGM since 2004, who has finished her professional career
(too late, maybe) and now works for the St. Petersburg Chess Federation


Armed and dangerous – our second photographer Elena Mikheeva


The Alexander Nevsky Bridge at night. It connects Alexander Nevsky Square and Zanevsky prospect,
linking the southern and the northern parts of the city

Links

To read, replay and analyse the PGN games we adivse you to download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light. This program also gives you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.

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