More Attacking Chess At Aeroflot, Sasikiran Still Perfect

The top group of the Aeroflot Open continues to see attacking chess. After three rounds GM Krishnan Sasikiran is the sole leader with three victories.

Photo Boris Dolmatovsky.

We saw two nice attacking wins for white in the report on the first round, and we'll see more in this one! Let's start with round 2, board 1, where GM Ildar Khairullin crushed top seed GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in a Grünfeld, helped by Delroy the d-pawn:

Dutch IM Jorden van Foreest moved to 2.0/2 scoring his second GM scalp in a row. GM Mikhail Kobalia was much better in a middlegame with opposite-colored bishops, but then Van Foreest was suddenly the first to start a deadly attack.

GM Ian Nepomniachtchi's amazing rook-maneuver-turned-into-exchange-sac shouldn't be missed either. Even more sophisticated than Kasparov's famous Ra1-a4-b4xb7 against Shirov!

A puzzle in between. How did GM Alexander Motylev refute GM Mikhail Mozharov's 32...Qxf4?

Or what about the following game, on one of the lower boards. In what looks like a quiet Giuoco Piano position, GM Emre Can goes all in, with success:

GM Krishnan Sasikiran didn't do well at the recent India-China summit, but in Moscow he is the only player to win all his games so far. Against GM Pavel Ponkratov he won a nice ending where his bishop dominated the whole board:

GM Baskaran Adhiban was on his way to checkmate GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, but failed to deliver the decisive blow. Few black player will be willing to repeat this line of the French.

GM Vadim Zvjaginsev is one of those grandmasters who have a very different view about openings. After the deceptively quiet 3.g3 move, he continued in gambit style and finished the game with a nice combination:

2015 Aeroflot Open | A group | Round 3 Standings (Top 20)

(Full standings here.)

The Aeroflot Open is a nine-round Swiss which takes place March 27 - April 5 in Hotel Cosmos in northeast Moscow. There are rating groups A, B and C and the total prize fund is 140,000 Euro.

The A group's first prize is a massive 18,000 Euros. On top of that, the winner will be invited for the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund, to be held 27 June - 5 July, 2015.