Aeroflot 2010 Open Result

The Aeroflot Open is one of the strongest open events in the chess calendar, but tends to be overshadowed by the Super-GM Linares tournament that it clashes with.

The Aeroflot 2010 tournament finished on Wednesday, and a world blitz championship qualifying event which took place the next day served as a satisfying desert for chess fans after the main meal.

The prestige Aeroflot event - the A1 Open - was won by 19 year old Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem (pictured, from the official site).  He did it in style too, beating previous winner Nepomniachtchi in the last round for a clear victory with a score of 7/9 (game below), to take the first prize of 21,000 euros.

Wesley So was the top junior with 5.5 points, with Hou Yifan and Tatiana and Nadezhda Kosintseva the top women on 4 points.

The eagle-eyed will recognise Quang Liem from a recent report on the Moscow Open, where he also had a strong result.

The world blitz qualifying event was won by another 19 year-old, this time from France, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (pictured).  He achieved a score of 13.5 out of a possible 18, from this 9 round event (the players drawn against one another played 2 games with alternating colours).

The next five top finishers also qualified for the world blitz championship, to be held at the end of the Tal Memorial in November. They were Bu Xiangzhi, Rauf Mamedov, Boris Grachev, Boris Savchenko and Ian Nepomniachtchi.

They will join the 10 Tal Memorial competitors and four wildcard entrants to make a field of 20.