Poikovsky: Bologan, Jakovenko, Karjakin, Riazantsev on 1.5/2
Viktor Bologan, Dmitry Jakovenko, Sergei Karjakin and Alexander Riazantsev started with one draw and one win at the Karpov tournament in Poikovsky, Russia. The other participants are Ivan Sokolov, Emil Sutovsky, Alexander Onischuk, Baadur Jobava, Sergei Rublevsky, Arkadij Naiditsch, Nikita Vitiugov and Alexander Motylev.The 11th edition of the tournament named after 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov takes place June 2-13 in Poikovsky, Russia. For the first time the tournament now has not 10, but 12 players. In this round-robin of 11 rounds, the rest day is on June 8th.Poikovsky is located in the Nefteyugansk region of the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous area. It's about 150km eastern of Khanty-Mansiysk. Its name comes from the nearby river Poyka. The population is close to 30,000 people and the main economic drive is the extraction of oil and gas.Eleven years ago local authorities decided that a big chess tournament would do the region well. A year later a chess school for children was opened, like the tournament named after Anatoly Karpov. This year the chess school celebrated its 10th anniversary on June 1st, International Children's Day. The festivities were opened by Karpov himself.In the 11th tournament there are two players who never missed a single event in Poikovsky: Bologan and Onischuk. Jobava, Karjakin and Vitiugov make their debut this year. Motylev is defending his 2009 title.Evgeny Surov posted a first photo report on Chesspro, where many players can be seen planting a tree in Poikovsky, including Anatoly Karpov himself.Top seed this year is Sergei Karjakin, who just finished the ACP World Rapid Cup successfully a few days ago. He and the other finalist in Odessa, Dmitry Jakovenko, started with 1.5/2, and so did Viktor Bologan and Alexander Riazantsev.
