Alekhine Memorial Round 7

After a round of draws to start the second half of the Alekhine Memorial in St.Petersburg, round seven delivered two decisive games.

Firstly, world champion Vishy Anand moved to a plus score by recording his second victory of the tournament since his surprise opening round loss to Mickey Adams.

Anand defeated Laurent Fressinet with the white pieces when the Frenchman went astray around the first time control in a tricky major piece endgame.

Boris Gelfand won the other decisive game of the day, beating Ding Liren in the last game of the day to finish. Gelfand now shares the lead with the tournament's other French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Vishy Anand picked up a full point against Laurent Fressinet

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Boris Gelfand defeated Ding Liren to earn a share of the lead

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Mickey Adams was held to a draw by leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

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Peter Svidler is having a tournament to forget, but he drew with Vladimir Kramnik

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Nikita Vitiugov drew his game with Lev Aronian

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The Alekhine Memorial Standings after 7 rounds

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The Alekhine Memorial takes place from 21 April - 1 May. The official site can be found here, with live game analysis here and video commentary here (with archive).

The tournament is a 10-player single round robin competition, with the first half held in the Louvre in Paris and the second half in the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg.

The time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes to a finish with a 30 second increment from the start.  No draw offers are allowed until after 40 moves have been played.  The prize fund is €100,000 with €30,000 for first place.

All rounds start at 14:00 local time (12:00 UTC when in Paris, 10:00 UTC when in St. Petersburg), except the last round which is 1 hour earlier.

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The schedule of events

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Games and screenshots from the official website coverage.