Alexander Alekhine Memorial Announced
The Russian Chess Federation has announced the establishment of a new tournament in honour of the fourth world chess champion Alexander Alekhine.
The Alekhine Memorial will be a 10-player single round robin tournament held jointly in the Louvre in Paris and the Russian State Museum in St.Petersburg between 21 April - 1 May.
The choice of shared venue is apposite, since Alekhine was based in Paris during the most productive time of his chess career, and won his first major Russian tournament, the All-Russian Masters Tournament in St.Petersburg in 1914.
The line-up is headed by the world champion Vishy Anand, world #2 Vladimir Kramnik, and world #3 Lev Aronian.
The full line-up is:
| Name | Fed | Elo | Rank |
| Vladimir Kramnik | RUS | 2810 | 2 |
| Levon Aronian | ARM | 2809 | 3 |
| Vishy Anand | IND | 2784 | 6 |
| Peter Svidler | RUS | 2747 | 14 |
| Boris Gelfand | ISR | 2740 | 18 |
| Michael Adams | ENG | 2727 | 23 |
| Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | FRA | 2722 | 27 |
| Nikita Vitiugov | RUS | 2712 | 30 |
| Ding Liren | CHN | 2707 | 35 |
| Laurent Fressinet | FRA | 2706 | 40 |
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Ilya Levitov, the Chairman of the Management Board of the Russian Chess Federation, "Alekhine is one of the brightest personalities in chess history. I think it's pretty logical and nice that the fourth world champion's Memorial will be held in two cultural capitals of the world. An interesting participants' list promises a tense fight, while the brilliant museums which will host the event will increase the spectators' interest to the Alekhine Memorial as not only to a chess competition, but as the cultural event too."
The Louvre Museum with its famous Pyramid
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Gennady Timchenko, the sponsor of Alekhine Memorial, "The Alekhine Memorial continues a successful tradition of holding the top events in the famous museums of the world. It was started in the Tretyakov Gallery in May 2012. We are thankful to Louvre and Russian museum which have supported our initiative and we are sure that the upcoming tournament will work not only for popularization of chess, but to popularization of Russian art too. The first Russian world champion was one oft he most interesting chess painters of XX century. His creative heritage stays valuable for the new generations and his biography continues to inspire the historians and the fans. the forthcoming tournament is a tribute to a great chess player and a worthy citizen of two countries - Russia and France."
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