Le Quang Liem repeats Aeroflot victory

Despite a spectacular loss against Ivan Cheparinov in the penultimate round, Le Quang Liem won the Aeroflot Open for the second time in a row. The Vietnamese grandmaster edged out Nikita Vitiugov and Evgeny Tomashevsky on tie-break after the three finished on 6.5/9.

General info

The 10th Aeroflot Open chess festival took place February 7-18, 2011 in the capital of Russia. Venue was the Izmailovo hotel in eastern Moscow. In the A tournament (rating >2550) the top seeded players were GMs Kamsky, Movsesian, Jakovenko, Vachier-Lagrave and Vitiugov. More info here.

Rounds 7-9

We left the tournament after six rounds, when last year's winner Le Quang Liem was in sole first place with 5 points. The Vietnamese GM continued strongly on Monday with a victory, against Russian GM Mikhail Kobalia, who was completely outplayed and resigned at move 28 in this position:

Kobalia-Le Quang Liem Aeroflot 2011 Black will continue with ...h5-h4 and ...Rf6+ which is just killing.


In the same round, two seconds of Veselin Topalov met on the board and played a spectacular game:

Cheparinov-Salgado Lopez Aeroflot 2011 Several moves win but Cheparinov went for 19.Rxe6+!? dxe6 20.Qd8+ Kf7 21.Ng5+! Kg6 22.Nxe6 Qxb3 23.Nxf8+ Kh5 24.Ne5 Bf3 25.Nxf3 Qxf3 26.Rd5+ Kh6 27.Qe7 1-0


Thanks to his win, before the penultimate round Le Quang Liem was leading by a full point. Needless to say, until then he was still undefeated. But in round 8 things went wrong.

Le Quang Liem-Cheparinov Aeroflot 2011 30.Bxf4? (30. h4 Rf8 31. Kh2 is how White should defend.) 30... exf4 31.Qd3? Qxg5+ 32.Kf1

32...f3! No doubt underestimated by the Vietnamese.
33.Qxf3 Rf8 34.Qd3 Qf4 35.Qg3 Qc4+ 36.Kg1 Qxd5 and Black won.


In the last round Le Quang Liem played a solid draw with the black pieces against Rauf Mamedov of Azerbaijan, and so he was the first to reach 6.5 points. Nikita Vitiugov and Evgeny Tomashevsky won their last round encounters, against Cheparinov and Sjugirov respectively, to catch Le in the standings. (For the games see the game viewer below.)

The first tie-break rule was the number of games played with Black, and so Tomashevsky fell off as the Russian had played the white pieces five times. The second tie-break rule was the average of the opponents' ratings minus the highest and the lowest rating, and this decided that Le Quang Liem was again the winner in Moscow. And so we'll see him back in Dortmund this summer, where he did so well last year, finishing clear second, behind Ruslan Ponomariov.



Gata Kamsky recovered well from his losses against Le Quang Liem and Ding Liren, and finished with three wins. The American scored 6/9, just like Russian GM Denis Khismatullin (who has worked as a second for several Russian top players), Chinese GM Yu Yangyi, Israeli GM Maxim Rodshtein, former FIDE World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov from Uzbekistan, the aforementioned Rauf Mamedov (Azerbaijan) and Bulgarian GM Ivan Cheparinov, who played very enterprising chess in Moscow.

France's top player Maxime Vachier-Lagrave scored just slightly below par with 5.5 points, which isn't a bad result so soon after a tough (and well played) Tata A group. Other Tata participants had a very tough tournament. Jon Ludvig Hammer (2647) from Norway, who was struggling in Wijk aan Zee, also did badly in Moscow with a 2497 performance. He only won in the last two rounds.

GM Daniele Vocaturo ended on 3.5/9 and things went even worse for Wesley So, who played five draws and one loss in the first six rounds and then left the tournament. Already in Wijk aan Zee the Philippine GM, who recently moved to Toronto (Canada) with his family, lamented about tiredness. In the last edition of the Full English Breakfast So hinted that he might be putting chess on hold next season, as he's considering going to university instead.

Russian IM Daniil Dubov (2459) is a name to remember - he scored an undefated 2699 performance! FM Ivan Bukavshin (2458) didn't do so bad either with a 2654 performance.

The B tournament was won by GM Tigran Kotanjian from Armenia, who edged out GMs Darwin Laylo (Philippines) and GM Nikolai Kabanov (Russia) on tiebreak. More Armenian successes were seen in the C group: David Shahinyan finished clear first with 8/9 and Tigran Simonian clear second with half a point less.

Aeroflot 2011 | A tournament | Final standings

Rank	Name	Score	Fed.	Rating	TPR	W-We	Rat-HiLo
1	GM Le, Quang Liem	6.5	VIE	2664	2809	+1.73	2649.4
2	GM Vitiugov, Nikita	6.5	RUS	2709	2803	+1.11	2638.6
3	GM Tomashevsky, Evgeny	6.5	RUS	2695	2797	+1.22	2630.6
4	GM Khismatullin, Denis	6.0	RUS	2649	2779	+1.57	2660.3
5	GM Yu, Yangyi	6.0	CHN	2607	2762	+1.87	2644.1
6	GM Kamsky, Gata	6.0	USA	2730	2756	+0.28	2631.1
7	GM Rodshtein, Maxim	6.0	ISR	2625	2734	+1.32	2614.7
8	GM Kasimdzhanov, Rustam	6.0	UZB	2681	2727	+0.56	2607.0
9	GM Mamedov, Rauf	6.0	AZE	2660	2720	+0.74	2597.4
10	GM Cheparinov, Ivan	6.0	BUL	2665	2716	+0.62	2587.0
11	GM Sandipan, Chanda	5.5	IND	2641	2715	+0.93	2639.4
12	GM Bocharov, Dmitry	5.5	RUS	2605	2686	+1.01	2611.1
13	GM Andreikin, Dmitry	5.5	RUS	2689	2663	-0.29	2594.0
14	GM Grachev, Boris	5.5	RUS	2660	2662	+0.04	2592.4
15	GM Zvjaginsev, Vadim	5.5	RUS	2660	2669	+0.14	2589.6
16	GM Petrosian, Tigran L.	5.5	ARM	2604	2750	+1.82	2671.0
17	GM Jakovenko, Dmitry	5.5	RUS	2718	2718	+0.01	2639.4
18	GM Kobalia, Mikhail	5.5	RUS	2666	2715	+0.63	2638.0
19	GM Sjugirov, Sanan	5.5	RUS	2626	2700	+0.96	2630.1
20	GM Ding, Liren	5.5	CHN	2628	2703	+0.92	2624.7
21	GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	5.5	FRA	2715	2698	-0.18	2620.6
22	GM Zhou, Jianchao	5.5	CHN	2655	2693	+0.51	2617.9
23	GM Volokitin, Andrei	5.5	UKR	2678	2664	-0.14	2593.1
24	GM Sutovsky, Emil	5.5	ISR	2695	2669	-0.31	2588.6
25	GM Khalifman, Alexander	5.5	RUS	2638	2626	-0.13	2547.4
26	GM Movsesian, Sergei	5.0	ARM	2721	2668	-0.69	2624.0
27	GM Motylev, Alexander	5.0	RUS	2687	2603	-1.04	2566.3
28	IM Dubov, Daniil	5.0	RUS	2459	2699	+2.79	2656.9
29	IM Kovalenko, Igor	5.0	UKR	2515	2664	+1.78	2635.4
30	GM Vuckovic, Bojan	5.0	SRB	2623	2648	+0.28	2608.9
31	GM Bologan, Viktor	5.0	MDA	2693	2609	-1.01	2573.4
32	GM Lysyj, Igor	5.0	RUS	2635	2584	-0.62	2528.4
33	GM Salgado Lopez, Ivan	4.5	ESP	2626	2661	+0.44	2675.7
34	GM Hess, Robert L	4.5	USA	2572	2656	+1.02	2665.7
35	GM Grigoryan, Avetik	4.5	ARM	2595	2660	+0.80	2661.9
36	FM Bukavshin, Ivan	4.5	RUS	2458	2654	+2.27	2653.3
37	IM Fedoseev, Vladimir	4.5	RUS	2505	2637	+1.60	2641.1
38	GM Vorobiov, Evgeny E.	4.5	RUS	2556	2625	+0.86	2632.7
39	GM Felgaer, Ruben	4.5	ARG	2585	2619	+0.42	2623.1
40	GM Oleksienko, Mikhailo	4.5	UKR	2552	2608	+0.70	2620.4
41	GM Ni, Hua	4.5	CHN	2645	2585	-0.70	2582.1
42	GM Timofeev, Artyom	4.5	RUS	2681	2568	-1.37	2575.4
43	GM Khairullin, Ildar	4.5	RUS	2640	2568	-0.87	2563.1
44	GM Maletin, Pavel	4.5	RUS	2621	2543	-0.93	2536.7
45	GM Lenic, Luka	4.5	SLO	2613	2647	+0.42	2667.9
46	GM Fier, Alexandr	4.5	BRA	2571	2643	+0.89	2663.1
47	GM Shomoev, Anton	4.5	RUS	2557	2660	+1.27	2662.4
48	GM Jumabayev, Rinat	4.5	KAZ	2555	2641	+1.05	2642.9
49	GM Romanov, Evgeny	4.5	RUS	2606	2614	+0.09	2622.0
50	FM Nechepurenko, Roman V.	4.5	RUS	2546	2620	+0.90	2619.9
51	GM Riazantsev, Alexander	4.5	RUS	2689	2611	-0.97	2610.4
52	GM Kurnosov, Igor	4.5	RUS	2662	2591	-0.87	2590.0
53	GM Bluvshtein, Mark	4.5	CAN	2590	2589	-0.01	2588.7
54	GM Ragger, Markus	4.5	AUT	2615	2584	-0.39	2581.7
55	GM Predojevic, Borki	4.5	BIH	2626	2553	-0.89	2559.7
56	GM Kotsur, Pavel	4.0	KAZ	2559	2616	+0.71	2660.7
57	IM Papin, Vasily	4.0	RUS	2568	2589	+0.29	2644.1
58	GM Alsina Leal, Daniel	4.0	ESP	2531	2583	+0.66	2625.1
59	WGM Ju, Wenjun	4.0	CHN	2514	2557	+0.54	2606.0
60	GM Deviatkin, Andrei	4.0	RUS	2573	2518	-0.66	2559.6
61	GM Novikov, Stanislav	4.0	RUS	2568	2564	-0.03	2611.6
62	GM Iturrizaga, Eduardo	4.0	VEN	2611	2549	-0.74	2583.0
63	GM Zhao, Jun	4.0	CHN	2599	2539	-0.73	2577.9
64	GM Hammer, Jon Ludvig	4.0	NOR	2647	2497	-1.81	2544.9
65	GM Mekhitarian, Krikor Sevag	3.5	BRA	2528	2534	+0.08	2616.7
66	GM Mamedov, Nidjat	3.5	AZE	2580	2521	-0.75	2602.1
67	IM Sethuraman, S.P.	3.5	IND	2545	2512	-0.42	2597.3
68	GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra	3.5	RUS	2498	2493	-0.08	2583.3
69	GM Savchenko, Boris	3.5	RUS	2637	2465	-2.14	2547.7
70	GM Mareco, Sandro	3.5	ARG	2627	2464	-2.00	2542.6
71	GM Edouard, Romain	3.5	FRA	2634	2452	-2.23	2537.9
72	GM Kotronias, Vasilios	3.5	GRE	2599	2545	-0.68	2628.1
73	Xiu, Deshun	3.5	CHN	2508	2508	-0.03	2595.7
74	GM Korobov, Anton	3.5	UKR	2670	2486	-2.28	2568.6
75	GM Vocaturo, Daniele	3.5	ITA	2570	2395	-1.87	2517.3
76	GM Zhou, Weiqi	3.0	CHN	2573	2512	-0.69	2648.7
77	IM Danin, Alexandre	3.0	RUS	2538	2503	-0.38	2637.6
78	GM El Debs, Felipe de Cresce	3.0	BRA	2499	2492	-0.06	2616.0
79	GM Zhigalko, Andrey	3.0	BLR	2566	2464	-1.22	2596.3
80	WGM Pogonina, Natalija	3.0	RUS	2472	2381	-0.90	2563.3
81	IM Huschenbeth, Niclas	2.5	GER	2450	2411	-0.48	2586.4
82	GM Roussel-Roozmon, Thomas	2.5	CAN	2500	2420	-0.95	2598.1
83	IM Geller, Jakov	2.5	RUS	2544	2417	-1.51	2590.0
84	WGM Paikidze, Nazi	2.5	GEO	2455	2402	-0.66	2575.0
85	IM Khader, Sami	2.5	JOR	2450	2268	-1.75	2505.0
86	GM So, Wesley	2.5/6	PHI	2673	2507	-1.39	2562.0

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