Shirov Wins At Keres Memorial
The great Estonian chess Grandmaster Paul Keres was born on 7 January 1916 and passed away far too soon in 1975 aged just 59. Keres is widely regarded as one of the greatest chess players never to have become the world champion.
Every year there is a memorial chess tournament held near the date of his birthday in his birthplace, Tallinn (there is also an annual tournament in Vancouver, where he played his last tournament in 1975).
Since the 1990's the Tallinn tournament has been a rapid event, and this year it was won by Alexei Shirov by a clear point. Held from 7-9 January, the chess festival was also attended by Anatoly Karpov, Lajos Portisch and the Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
A preliminary qualifying Swiss event took place on 7-8 January, with the two winners, Artem Smirnov and Denis Kovaljov, joining an invited field on Sunday 9 January for a round-robin finale. Games were played at a time control of 15 minutes plus a 10 second increment.
The final standings:
| 1 | Shirov, Alexei | ESP | 2722 | # | 0.5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.5 | 1 | 6.0 |
| 2 | Ehlvest, Jaan | USA | 2586 | 0.5 | # | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5.0 |
| 3 | Miezis, Normunds | LAT | 2546 | 0 | 0.5 | # | 0.5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5.0 |
| 4 | Lugovoi, Aleksei | RUS | 2531 | 0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | # | 1 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 4.0 |
| 5 | Vovk, Ilja | EST | 2267 | 0 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | # | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3.5 |
| 6 | Volodin, Aleksandr | EST | 2487 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 | 0 | # | 1 | 1 | 2.5 |
| 7 | Smirnov, Artem | RUS | 2428 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | # | 1 | 2.0 |
| 8 | Kovaljov, Denis | EST | 2274 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | # | 0.0 |
