Grischuk Draws Quickly With Kramnik To Clinch Victory At Petrosian Memorial

Alexander Grischuk easily won the Petrosian Memorial as he was able to draw his last-round game with Vladimir Kramnik, his closest rival, rather quickly.

In the final round Boris Gelfand and Levon Aronian jumped to shared third place in the final standings; they defeated Peter Leko and Ernesto Inarkiev respectively.

Sometimes two players are happy with a draw, and then there's not much you can do about it. Grischuk only needed half a point to secure tournament victory, while Kramnik already had a fine tournament so far (an undefeated plus two) and surely didn't want to risk an unnecessary loss as Black. 

All this resulted in a 14-move draw in the final round of the Petrosian Memorial, which did take two hours, though.

Luckily there were still three interesting games left. Gelfand and Leko seemed to be heading to a draw, as they quickly reached an ending Teimour Radjabov has successfully defended several times, but suddenly it became clear that White was actually pressing this time. Gelfand had studied the rook ending, and managed to win it!

Morozevich faced the solid, “6-draws”-Ding Liren, and in a Caro-Kann the Russian managed to get a nice position. Right after the opening there were some promising alternatives to his play, but it seems he missed the tactic employed by the Chinese GM, which equalized instantly.

The longest game was Inarkiev-Aronian, and it was a wonderful display of endgame technique by the Armenian. The game reminded some of Capablanca's finest examples:

2014 Petrosian Memorial | Final Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Pts	SB
1	Grischuk,Alexander	2795	2966		½	½	1	½	1	1	1	5.5/7
2	Kramnik,Vladimir	2760	2848	½		½	½	½	½	1	1	4.5/7
3	Aronian,Levon	2797	2791	½	½		½	½	½	½	1	4.0/7	13.00
4	Gelfand,Boris	2759	2796	0	½	½		½	1	1	½	4.0/7	11.50
5	Ding Liren	2730	2750	½	½	½	½		½	½	½	3.5/7
6	Leko,Peter	2731	2649	0	½	½	0	½		½	½	2.5/7
7	Morozevich,Alexander	2724	2593	0	0	½	0	½	½		½	2.0/7	6.00
8	Inarkiev,Ernesto	2688	2598	0	0	0	½	½	½	½		2.0/7	6.00

2014 Petrosian Memorial | Pairings & Results

The Petrosian Memorial was held 3-11 November in Moscow. The prize fund was € 100,000 sponsored by Tashir Group.| Games via TWIC