Aeroflot: Dubov, Nepomniachtchi Tied For 1st Place After Rounds 6, 7
With three rounds to go (and round seven underway at press time) Russian GMs Daniil Dubov and Ian Nepomniachtchi are tied for first place at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow.
Photo Boris Dolmatovsky.
We left this very strong open tournament in the Russian capital after round three, when Indian grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran topped the field with 3.0/3. A group of seven players were trailing him by half a point.
In round four, Sasikiran drew quickly with GM Igor Kovalenko using the ultra-safe Exchange Slav. Only one player caught the leader in first place: IM Jorden van Foreest of the Netherlands.
The Dutch talent probably wasn't too happy with it. He got a free point because his opponent GM Ivan Salgado Lopez didn't show up and withdrew from the tournament (suffering from gastrointestinal symptoms).
This way Van Foreest, who had a great start, can't score a GM norm anymore. For that, nine “real” games are needed.
Update: as GM Dimitri Reinderman informed us, Van Foreest can actually still score a norm, just not over 9 games. The FIDE Title Regulations effective from 1 July 2014 state:
1.41c For a 9 round tournament, if a player has just 8 games because of a forfeit or Bye, but he has met the correct mix of opponents in those games, then if he has a title result in 8 games, it counts as an 8 game norm.
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi got to 3.0/4 with a nice king's attack that only came about after about 30 moves of maneuvering followed by a positional exchange sac.
GM Ivan Bukavshin quickly beat Moscow Open winner GM Ernesto Inarkiev, who missed an important intermediate move. It was suddenly completely over.
Van Foreest got to show what he's worth in the very next round. Playing Sasikiran as Black is a good test, isn't it? The opening went White's way, who could give a piece for three pawns and what looked like promising attacking position.
But the Dutch IM could trade queens, and at some point Sasikiran wasn't sure anymore and offered a draw.
Top seed GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov failed to win the Reykjavik Open and it doesn't look like he'll be winning Aeroflot either. In round five, he went down against Spanish GM David Anton (in a line he also played in Iceland):
The next day Van Foreest finally lost his first game, to Nepomniachtchi. The Russian GM nicely played on both wings. Keeping the whole board in mind is such an important strength in chess!
In the same round Sasikiran also lost his first game. It was another local hero, GM Daniil Dubov, who brought down the Indian grandmaster from an almost equal rook ending. Only Black's structure was slightly worse, but that shouldn't have been enough to lose the game:
Inarkiev quickly recovered from his loss. He won as Black in only 19 moves against the increasingly popular 1.b3. Black's setup is one to remember.
After six rounds GM Daniil Dubov and GM Ian Nepomniachtchi tied for first place with 5 points. In round seven, under way at press time, they drew in 13 moves and so they're still leading with two rounds to go. The winner of Adhiban-Bukavshin will join them at the top.
2015 Aeroflot Open | A group | Round 6 Standings (Top 20)
| Rk. | SNo | Title | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 |
| 1 | 22 | GM | Dubov Daniil | RUS | 2627 | 5 | 3 | 2681 |
| 2 | 2 | GM | Nepomniachtchi Ian | RUS | 2714 | 5 | 3 | 2603 |
| 3 | 26 | GM | Bukavshin Ivan | RUS | 2618 | 4,5 | 3 | 2637 |
| 4 | 18 | GM | Adhiban B. | IND | 2646 | 4,5 | 3 | 2597 |
| 5 | 43 | GM | Lu Shanglei | CHN | 2570 | 4 | 3 | 2656 |
| 6 | 61 | IM | Van Foreest Jorden | NED | 2493 | 4 | 3 | 2642 |
| 7 | 21 | GM | Khairullin Ildar | RUS | 2630 | 4 | 3 | 2620 |
| 8 | 8 | GM | Sasikiran Krishnan | IND | 2682 | 4 | 3 | 2604 |
| 9 | 15 | GM | Zvjaginsev Vadim | RUS | 2658 | 4 | 3 | 2591 |
| 10 | 14 | GM | Mamedov Rauf | AZE | 2658 | 4 | 3 | 2584 |
| 11 | 11 | GM | Petrosian Tigran L. | ARM | 2671 | 4 | 3 | 2576 |
| 12 | 28 | GM | Anton Guijarro David | ESP | 2614 | 4 | 3 | 2540 |
| 13 | 19 | GM | Kobalia Mikhail | RUS | 2632 | 4 | 3 | 2536 |
| 14 | 35 | GM | Svetushkin Dmitry | MDA | 2592 | 4 | 2 | 2655 |
| 1516 | 40 | GM | Grigoriants Sergey | RUS | 2573 | 3,5 | 3 | 2654 |
| 1516 | 52 | IM | Wagner Dennis | GER | 2549 | 3,5 | 3 | 2654 |
| 17 | 6 | GM | Korobov Anton | UKR | 2694 | 3,5 | 3 | 2620 |
| 18 | 34 | GM | Shimanov Aleksandr | RUS | 2594 | 3,5 | 3 | 2614 |
| 19 | 3 | GM | Rapport Richard | HUN | 2709 | 3,5 | 3 | 2612 |
| 20 | 9 | GM | Fedoseev Vladimir | RUS | 2674 | 3,5 | 3 | 2606 |
(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 June 27 to July 5.
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