Russian Superfinal 2013

A strong tournament that has been a bit neglected in the middle of all other top events lately. Reports from the first rounds:

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/PostId/4011413/russian-superfinal-01-games-start-with-a-bang-061013.aspx

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/PostId/4011417/russian-superfinal-02-gunina-and-vitiugov-lead-071013.aspx

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/PostId/4011440/russia-super-final-03-andreikin-topples-kramnik-071013.aspx

Thx

Is there live coverage in english Somewere?.

no but seriously they cover the sinquefield cup in america but not the russian superfinals??

how could that have been more important than the superfinals??

like 4 super GMs pretending they really care for a lousy 70000, even though everyone of them dreams to make history or make more history...

The most interesting thing this far is that Andreikin continues to do well against Kramnik. This was his third win in less than four months, and his highest world ranking during these games was 29th. Looking at other sites discussing the event a common view is that Kramnik only cared about the World Cup and didn't bother about the other games, but I think that is to give Andreikin too little credit.

Andreikin won in Tal Memorial, one of the strongest and most prestigious events of the year, and also in Dortmund, that is Kramnik's "own" tournament that he always really wants to win. He even withdrew from events like the Norwegian top tournament to be better prepared for those he played. Then the Russian Superfinal is also important since he never won the national Championship in his career and very much would like to do that at least once before retiring rather than seeing Svidler win his seventh.

In the World Cup, on the other hand, he said that he had nothing to play for and didn't take it particularly seriously. In any case this last game, where Kramnik kept playing for around 20 moves in a dead lost position, it sure looked as if he didn't want to lose to Andreikin again. As things look now Svidler should be the favourite, but there's still time for Kramnik to catch up if he can beat some of the lower rated players. The field on the whole is a bit weaker than usual, without players like Grischuk and Morozevich.

Easy white wins in the fourth round for Svidler against Andreikin and Kramnik against Goganov. Karjakin keeps falling on the rating list, now down to 13th after another unimpressive game. In the beginning of 2008 he was equal with Carlsen but is now almost 120 points behind. Svidler sole leader, 0.5 ahead of Vitiugov. Next round's top games:

Goganov-Svidler, Motylev-Kramnik, Vitiugov-Karjakin

In the women's event one can't help but wonder what has happened to rating favourite Tatiana Kosintseva. She is winless at the bottom of the field, and today she somehow avoided winning an endgame that looked like this:

Here Kosintseva as black could win in many ways, the quickest by just picking up the pawn at f3 after Ke3 followed by Rc5+. Similar positions occured many times, but Kosintseva just shuffled the knights back and forth until draw was reached. With 30 seconds increment she had time to think for at least a minute in positions like the one above, and even if it's easy to find wins as a spectator, it's hard to imagine that she would fail to find any of the available wins if she was anywhere close to normal form.

So in the end Svidler won his seventh (!) title after beating Nepomniachtchi in rapid tiebreak. The national Championship still eludes Kramnik, who finished shared third with Vitiugov after losing to Nepomniachtchi in the last round.