Alexander Morozevich and Tatiana Kosintseva Russian Champion

Alexander Morozevich and Tatiana Kosintseva are the new Russian Champions. At the end Morozevich won the title convincingly after all, since Grischuk, who had passed Tomashevsky on the list in round 10, drew against Svidler while Morozevich finished the tournament with his 7th victory, bringing his final score on 8 out of 11. Kosintseva won the women tournament on tiebreak after finishing shared first with Tairova, Ovod and Korbut.

Since a few weeks you can find the header of the article that was posted on ChessVibes exactly one year ago, right under the daily puzzle. Funny enough, today one year ago the header was "Marvellous Morozevich", because the Russian had just won the Pamplona tournament with 6 out of 7. One year later he wins the Russian Championship on the same day!

In Mexico, Alexander wasn't very satisfied about his play, but as it turned out on New Year's Eve he can look back with some satisfaction again. Peter Svidler has made a big jump on the FIDE rating list and will be satisfied about that, but needs to repair the Moscow damage in the coming months to keep his new status intact.

The women's tournament finished dramatically. Tairova had been leading from round 7 onwards, and was joined by Korbut in the penultimate round. Both had 7 out of 10, followed by Tatiana Kosintseva, Pogonina and Ovod with 6 points. But in the last round Korbut lost to Ovod, Tairova lost as well and Kosintseva beat Pogonina, which meant Ovod and Kosintseva joined the two leaders in the final standings, and then it turned out that number one seed (and current European Champion) Tatiana Kosintseva had the best tiebreak.

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