Alekhine Memorial Round 2

Round two of the Alekhine Memorial proved to be every bit as exciting as the opening round, with three more decisive games to thrill the chess fans watching in the Louvre, and online around the world.

Ding Liren had defeated Lev Aronian in the biggest shock result of the first round, but he was crushed brilliantly by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in round two.  The Chinese player's dark squared bishop never moved from f8 where it was trapped for most of the game!

Another man to suffer a reversal of fortune was Vladimir Kramnik. After winning beautifully on the opening day, the Russian lost to Lev Aronian in round two.  Kramnik played the Semi-Tarrasch, which he had used to beat Aronian in the Candidates Tournament in March.  This time Aronian varied first with 6.e4 and won an excellent game.

However, the clear leader after two rounds is Mickey Adams. After taking the scalp of the world champion yesterday, the veteran English grandmaster defeated Peter Svidler in fine style to lead with a perfect start of 2 points from 2 games.

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Peter Svidler offers his hand in resignation

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Vladimir Kramnik lost to Lev Aronian

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The closing moments of Aronian's victory

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Maxime Vachier-Lagrave crushed Ding Liren's Caro-Kann defence

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What a difference a day makes...Ding Liren suffered horribly

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World champion Vishy Anand drew with Nikita Vitiugov

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Laurent Fressinet drew with Boris Gelfand

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The Alekhine Memorial Standings after 2 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. Archived videos are here.

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.