Sergey Karjakin Wins Aeroflot Chess Blitz 2012

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hello everyone,

Sergey Karjakin won the Aeroflot Blitz tournament in his hometown Moscow, Russia. The Russian grandmaster finished on 15/18 in this double nine round event, half a point more than former blitz world champion Alexander Grischuk. Traditionally, one day after the Aeroflot Open's last round, the chess festival finishes with a blitz tournament. This time there were no less than 117 grandmasters, among them Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Morozevich, Peter Svidler, Alexander Grischuk, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Baadur Jobava, Dmitry Jakovenko, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Le Quang Liem, Krishnan Sasikiran and Vallejo Pons. 

 

Hotel Cosmos, the venue of the Aeroflot Chess Festival

Top seed Karjakin went off to a great start, scoring 2-0 against Bayarsaikhan Gundavaa, Alojzije Jankovic, Vasily Papin and Dmitry Andreikin. Then Dmitry Jakovenko held him to 1-1, but Maxim Dlugy, the retired American GM who lives in Moscow, also lost 2-0. Karjakin then also defeated Baadur Jobava (1.5.-0.5), the match which Karjakin considered to be the most difficult. The crucial match with Alexander Grischuk in the penultimate round ended in 1-1. In the final round, a 1.5-0.5 victory over Alexei Dreev was enough for Karjakin to finish just half a point ahead of Grischuk, reaching 15 points in total.

You can read a full report in English at ChessVibes, and in Russian at ChessMoscow.

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