Aeroflot Open: Kharlov leads, Ivanchuk in hot pursuit
23.02.2005 After eight rounds, with one to go, Andrei Kharlov has kept his lead with 6.5/10. But a ferocious game between Sutovsky and Ivanchuk saw the latter triumph with black to come within striking distance (together with Sergey Volkov. We bring you games, results, an extensive report and impressions of Moscow.
The International Chess Open Festival "Aeroflot Open 2005" in Moscow runs
from Feb. 15-23. It is being held in the Hotel Rossija, directly next to the
Red Square. Games start at 3 p.m. Moscow time. There are four groups: Tournament
A1 for players with a FIDE rating higher than 2549; Tournament
A2 for players between 2399-2550; Tournament B 2199-2400;
Tournament C below 2200. The time
controls are 40/2, 20/1 + 15 minutes/rest (tournament B and C: 90'+30"
for the whole game).
Round eight saw the tournament leader Andrei Kharlov draw with Sergey Volkov
to maintain his lead. He remains at the top of the table at 6.5 points, while
Volkov is equal second at 6.0. The most exciting game (at the top) was undoubtedly
the encounter between Emil Sutovsky, who was half a point behind Kharlov with
ambitions of catching up, and Vassily Ivanchuk, who was trailing the leader
by a full point.
Sutovsky,Emil - Ivanchuk,Vassily
Aeroflot Open 2005 (8)
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Bd3 Nf6 7.Qe2 Bd6
8.Nf3 Nc6 9.0-0 b5. This appears to be a new move. A previous game,
Vulfson,V-Vyzmanavin,A/Moscow 1981/EXT 2002, continued 9...Ng4 10.g3 h5 11.Kg2
b5 12.h3 Nge5 13.Nxe5 Nxe5 14.f4 Nxd3 15.cxd3 Bb7 with a win in 30 moves for
Black. 10.Re1 Ng4
Here Sutovsky plays a risky sacrifice: 11.Nd5 exd5 12.exd5+ Ne7 13.Bf4
(threatening 14.Qxe7) 13...Qc5 14.Nh4 h5 15.b4 Qxb4
16.Bd2
Watch the tactics now: 16...Bxh2+ 17.Kh1 Qc5 18.f4 Bg3 19.Nf5 Nf2+
20.Kg1 Nh3+ 21.Kh1 Nf2+ 22.Kg1 Nxd3+ 23.Be3 Nxf4 24.Qf3 Qxd5 25.Qxg3 Nxf5 26.Bxf4+
Kf8 27.Qa3+ d6 28.Rad1 Qc6. Black has emerged from the jungle a knight
and three pawns ahead, the game is over for White. 29.Re2 Be6 30.Bxd6+
Kg8 31.Be5 Rh6 32.Red2 Rg6 33.g3 Kh7 34.Rd8 Qb6+ 0-1. [Click
here to replay]
Top standings after eight rounds (without tiebreak scores)
Kharlov, Andrei |
RUS |
6.5 |
Ivanchuk, Vassily |
UKR |
6.0 |
Volkov, Sergey |
RUS |
6.0 |
Akopian, Vladimir |
ARM |
5.5 |
Bacrot, Etienne |
FRA |
5.5 |
Sutovsky, Emil |
ISR |
5.5 |
Motylev, Alexander |
RUS |
5.5 |
Eljanov, Pavel |
UKR |
5.5 |
Malakhov, Vladimir |
RUS |
5.5 |
Bologan, Viktor |
MDA |
5.5 |
Radjabov, Teimour |
AZE |
5.5 |
Khalifman, Alexander |
RUS |
5.5 |
Ni, Hua |
CHN |
5.0 |
Bu, Xiangzhi |
CHN |
5.0 |
Sakaev, Konstantin |
RUS |
5.0 |
Kobalia, Mikhail |
RUS |
5.0 |
Riazantsev, Alexander |
RUS |
5.0 |
Aronian, Levon |
ARM |
5.0 |
Van Wely, Loek |
NED |
5.0 |
Sorokin, Maxim |
RUS |
5.0 |
Sargissian, Gabriel |
ARM |
5.0 |
Tregubov, Pavel V. |
RUS |
5.0 |
Shabalov, Alexander |
USA |
4.5 |
Zvjaginsev, Vadim |
RUS |
4.5 |
Asrian, Karen |
ARM |
4.5 |
Petrosian, Tigran L. |
ARM |
4.5 |
Areshchenko, Alexander |
UKR |
4.5 |
Naiditsch, Arkadij |
GER |
4.5 |
Belov, Vladimir |
RUS |
4.5 |
Filippov, Valerij |
RUS |
4.5 |
Yermolinsky, Alex |
USA |
4.5 |
Iordachescu, Viorel |
MDA |
4.5 |
Postny, Evgeny |
ISR |
4.5 |
Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter |
ROM |
4.5 |
|
Minasian, Artashes |
ARM |
4.5 |
Smirnov, Pavel |
RUS |
4.5 |
Kempinski, Robert |
POL |
4.5 |
Ghaem Maghami, Ehsan |
IRI |
4.5 |
Tseshkovsky, Vitaly |
RUS |
4.5 |
Ehlvest, Jaan |
EST |
4.5 |
Wang, Yue |
CHN |
4.5 |
Timofeev, Artyom |
RUS |
4.5 |
Lugovoi, Aleksei |
RUS |
4.5 |
Beliavsky, Alexander G |
SLO |
4.0 |
Ponomariov, Ruslan |
UKR |
4.0 |
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar |
AZE |
4.0 |
Roiz, Michael |
ISR |
4.0 |
Sadvakasov, Darmen |
KAZ |
4.0 |
Kaidanov, Gregory S |
USA |
4.0 |
Efimenko, Zahar |
UKR |
4.0 |
Berkes, Ferenc |
HUN |
4.0 |
Kotsur, Pavel |
KAZ |
4.0 |
Kurnosov, Igor |
RUS |
4.0 |
Azarov, Sergei |
BLR |
4.0 |
Atalik, Suat |
BIH |
4.0 |
Gyimesi, Zoltan |
HUN |
4.0 |
Yakovich, Yuri |
RUS |
4.0 |
Sasikiran, Krishnan |
IND |
4.0 |
Galkin, Alexander |
RUS |
4.0 |
Erenburg, Sergey |
ISR |
4.0 |
Epishin, Vladimir |
RUS |
4.0 |
David, Alberto |
LUX |
4.0 |
Tkachiev, Vladislav |
FRA |
4.0 |
Izoria, Zviad |
GEO |
4.0 |
Fedorov, Alexei |
BLR |
4.0 |
Karjakin, Sergey |
UKR |
4.0 |
Nepomniachtchi, Ian |
RUS |
4.0 |
|
The Aeroflot Open – Report 1
By Anvar Tourdyev
With photographic impressions of Moscow by Michael Knyazkov
The fourth Aeroflot open took off on February, 15th in the very center of
Moscow, few minutes walk from the Red Square. A hotel “Rossija”
traditionally offers a vast and luxurious “Golden Hall” for tournaments
A1, A2 and B, and a smaller hall for amateur competition C. However, both areas
are well-overcrowded with players, family members, supporters, important guests
and other people willing to get their share of the most impressive chess gathering
of Russia’s capital.
Moscow on a snowy February morning
The climate control system had hard times adjusting to the crowds during the
first couple of rounds, and the air was rather stuffy, leading to complaints
from the top players. The journalists joked that such atmosphere would help
both the slim and the Middle Eastern participants.
The famous Bolshoi Theatre, situated on Teatralnaya Square
Another peculiarity of the tournament is the absence of a skittles room. A
small fraction of the “Golden Hall” offered for post-mortem analyses
is divided from the main playing hall by an invisible line, easily crossed
by overheated grandmasters. Most of the leading players ignore the opportunity
to exchange their thoughts after the game, due to both exhaustion and what
could be called “an excessive professionalism”.
The State Historical Museum
Some of the players who had decided not to stay in the hotel “Rossija”
complained about their problem of finding out the pairings – it is available
only in the tournament area and, of course, on the web. Well, everybody should
be able to get to the Internet in Moscow, I believe!
The road between Hotel Rossija and the Kremlin
With more than 600 participants it is difficult to run a tournament flawlessly.
In the first round one of the arbiters mistakenly set the result of the game
Tseshkovsky-Sasikiran as “0-1”. But it was Sasikiran who had run
out of time. The Indian grandmaster was aware of this, unlike his veteran Russian
opponent, who was sure that he had lost! Sasi went to the chief arbiter the
next day and asked him to fix the score in Tseshkovsky’s favor! [Click
here to replay this game]. This is an extraordinary example of fair play
in our days of universal practicality, and it should definitely be noted and
appreciated.
Gold medal for fairness: Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran
An unlucky incident occurred during the third round. In the middle of the
middlegame (excuse the tautology), when the nervous tension reached its peak...
the men’s lavatory broke down! This unexpected and very serious situation
led to heavy time trouble in some games, while players explored one of the
world’s largest hotels, searching for an alternative.
There were also some problems with, yes, you’ve guessed it right, cell
phones. In tournament C the phone rang in a bag laid not too far from the table.
A girl playing against the phone’s owner ignored the disturbance and
did not report it to the officials, but an arbiter approached the table, conducted
an investigation, found the culprit and decided... to allow the game to continue!
But this was not the end of story. After an hour of tense struggle the arbiter,
obviously having given the matter a fair amount of thought, returned and this
time forfeited the offender. Further inquiry revealed that the phone belongs
not to the player, but to his brother, and the parties called for an attorney...
Tverskaya Street, main street in Moscow
As for the composition of the festival, I have two main observations. First
is great number of women players: the four great “K” of women’s
chess (Kosteniuk, Kovalevskaya and the Kosintseva sisters), Zhukova, Galliamova,
Lahno, Zawadzka and many, many others. Apart from that, one often hears talk
of the “Ukrainian Brigade”, which is connected with an indeed record-breaking
number of Ukrainian representatives, including world class performers as Ivanchuk
and Ponomariov, rising stars Karjakin and Lahno, experienced grandmasters Neverov,
Romanishin, Lerner, Savchenko, younger generation leaders Areschenko, Eljanov,
Efimenko, Kuzubov, etc.
Tverskaya Street at night
The tournament is being dominated by Andrey Kharlov, who defeated Ivanchuk
in the key encounter of the round three. An innocent opening by the Kazan grandmaster
provoked a justified activity from his opponent. Ivanchuk damaged his pawn
structure but gained some dynamic pluses in return. In Kharlov’s post-game
opinion, Vassily probably lost objectivity during the game, trying to win from
an equal position. The resulting four-rook endgame with an extra pawn for Kharlov
was probably also drawn, but the depressed Ivanchuk did not put a strongest
resistance. [Click
here to replay] Unperturbed Kharlov often plays well in major events and
does not show his best play in less important ones, due to his inconsistent
motivation.
Emil Sutovsky of Israel has been in a crushing mood during this tournament,
sacrificing two pieces and a rook in rounds 3 and 4 to win both games against
Kotsur and Filippov (the latter tied for the first in Aeroflot open 2004).
These beautiful games will certainly appear in major chess magazines around
the world. [Click here
to replay].
The Red Square with St Basil's Cathedral
More or less disappointing is the result of Ruslan Ponomariov. The former
FIDE world champion from Ukraine scored 50%, with a number of draws, although
he fought hard in most of his games. Another FIDE ex-champion, Alexander Khalifman,
is doing much better, with 5.5/8. Alexander’s excellent attacking game
as Black against Galkin, an exceptionally solid player that loses very rarely,
broke his long winless strike. “Thank you”, replied Khalifman to
my congratulations, “winning a game becomes so exceptional to me that
I should probably celebrate it in some special way.”
The giant mall GUM, directly adjacent to the Red Square
So far it is difficult to make any predictions about the outcome of the tournament,
because the experience shows: an early lead does not mean much in the end.
A one who keeps energy for finishing strike is a most likely candidate for
Dortmund 2005...
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Anvar
Tourdyev is a violinist, a post-graduate student of Moscow State
Conservatory, and an avid chess player. Obviously he is the Conservatory
chess champion and leader of their chess club. Recently he took part in
his first FIDE rated tournament in Moscow (a round-robin called the Students
Olympiad of RGSU, organized by one of the local universities), and took the
first prize with a 2407 performance. Anvar’s results in various blitz
and rapid events in Moscow over the last few years show that he might be
already playing at a level close to IM... |
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