Alekhine Memorial Round 6

The Alekhine Memorial resumed with round six today, having moved from the Louvre in Paris to the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg.

The fighting spirit survived the flight to Russia, but alas the decisive games did not. For the first time in the tournament all the day's games ended in draws.

The closest we came to a decisive game was the clash between top seed Lev Aronian and Mickey Adams. The English Grandmaster achieved a clearly winning position, but a time-trouble oversight with 37...fxg4?? allowed Aronian to miraculously save the game.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave still leads the competition by half a point, with a score of 4/6.

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Surprise tournament leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

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Mickey Adams (left) squandered a won position in time trouble

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Vladimir Kramnik drew a great game with Vishy Anand

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Laurent Fressinet drew his game with Nikita Vitiugov

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DIng Liren drew with Peter Svidler

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The Alekhine Memorial Standings after 6 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.