Saratov Governor's Cup
A new chess tournament starts today in Saratov, Russia. The inaugural Saratov Governor's Cup is a 12-player single round robin tournament with a strong line-up including Ruslan Ponomariov (pictured), Alexander Morozevich, Peter Leko and Alexei Shirov.
The tournament runs from 8-19 October, with a rest day on 14 October and games starting at 15:00 local time (11:00 UTC).
The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes to a finish, with a 30 second increment from the first move.
The full line-up:
| Ponomariov, Ruslan | UKR | 2758 |
| Morozevich, Alexander | RUS | 2737 |
| Leko, Peter | HUN | 2728 |
| Vitiugov, Nikita | RUS | 2726 |
| Moiseenko, Alexander | UKR | 2726 |
| Shirov, Alexei | ESP | 2713 |
| Tomashevsky, Evgeny | RUS | 2710 |
| Andreikin, Dmitry | RUS | 2705 |
| Eljanov, Pavel | UKR | 2683 |
| Ni, Hua | CHN | 2670 |
| Roiz, Michael | ISR | 2668 |
| Alekseev, Evgeny | RUS | 2662 |
With an average rating of more than 2700 Elo, this is a welcome new tournament for chess fans. The official website seems to be the Russian Chess Federation website.
The first round is underway with Ponomariov playing Shirov, and Leko facing Morozevich.
Live coverage is available at this link.
