Ivanchuk needs 12 moves to win Tal Memorial

There was only one question left to be answered in Moscow: would Alexei Shirov be willing to put up a fight against Vassily Ivanchuk in the last round? But no, he wasn't really up to it and agreed to a draw on move 12. The other four games were drawn as well and so Ivanchuk celebrates yet another big success.

Photo ?Ǭ© Evgeny Potemkin

There's not much of a round report to be written here, because in just one game there was a real fight: Kamsky-Ponomariov. Right after the opening, the American sacrificed a pawn on the queenside for an attack on the kingside, which however was never realised. In the ending that followed, White was probably never really in danger of losing.

And so we have Ivanchuk as the winner again, after his success in Sofia earlier this year. During the Amber tournament, where he celebrated his 39th birthday, he claimed to have a "perfect age for chess". It's great to see that some stars from the nineties of the last century can still be stars in the new one as well.

Which was also, to a certain extent, proved by 40-year-old Boris Gelfand, who finished on a solid third place with plus one. With Ivanchuk, the Israeli was the only player to stay undefeated. Alexei Shirov, another star from that generation, is still struggling with his form, and finished with just one win and four losses.

Next on the "elite agenda" is, of course, the Grand Slam Final in Bilbao, with Anand, Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Topalov, Aronian and Radjabov. The first round of this event is already on Tuesday, September 2nd, and ChessVibes will be present during the whole tournament to bring on-the-spot video coverage.


Results round 9: Ivanchuk - Shirov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Kamsky - Ponomariov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Gelfand - Morozevich ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Alekseev - Leko ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Mamedyarov - Kramnik ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?

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