Onischuk and Pogonina winners at Moscow Open

With a ten-move draw against Sergei Tiviakov, American grandmaster Alexander Onischuk won the Moscow Open today. He finished at 7.5/9, ahead of Tiviakov, Inarkiev, Nepomniachtchi, Korotylev and Iordachescu who all collected 7 points. Natalia Pogonina (RUS) emerged as the winner in the women's tournament.

The international chess festival Moscow Open 2009 was held at the Russian State Social University from January 31st to February 8th. It was an enormous event with a total of 1551 players from 33 countries participating in the festival:

Open “A” (the main tournament) – 318 players Open “B” (the amateur tournament) – 515 players Open “C (female tournament) – 157 players Open “D” and “E” (school chess champions and school chess teams tournaments) – 537 players Open “G” (Chess Compositions Solving) – 27 players

There were 107 grandmasters, 89 masters and 116 FIDE masters.



The prize fund of the A group was three million rubles (€ 64,000 / US $83,000) and with his first prize, Onischuk collected 500,000 rubles (US $13,800). On tiebreak (average rating of the opponents) Tiviakov won silver and Inarkiev bronze. Fourth and fifth places were for Nepomniachtchi and Korotylev respectively.

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Onischuk's last-round game against Tiviakov lasted only 10 moves, and so his victory from the penultimate round was a crucial one:



In the women's tournament Natalia Pogonina won with score of 8 out of 9 - a full point ahead of Bat Mongontuul (Mongolia), Syaobin Gu (China), Svetlana Matveeva, Tatiana Molchanova and Valentina Gunina. Pogonina's prize was 150,000 rubles.

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Pogonina finished her tournament nicely:













Photos by Natalia Ushakova and Oxana Belkina

Links:

• Tournament website
• Videos (English & Russian)
• Games (Open A) in PGN
• Games (female tournament) in PGN