Ongoing and Forthcoming Events: Gibraltar, Moscow, Aeroflot, Linares
The first two events are ongoing and have been mentioned on this blog en passant; the last two are coming up.
Gibraltar (Gibtel) is down to the last round, and after 9 of 10 rounds there's a four-way tie for first between Movsesian, Vallejo Pons, Adams and Gustafsson, each with 7 points. Fourteen(!) players are half a point behind, including Bacrot and Kamsky. (Tournament site here.)
In Moscow 5 (of 9) rounds are over, and Dmitry Andreikin leads this prestigious open with 4½ points, half a point ahead of fourteen players (again 14!) including stars like Motylev, Bologan, Rublevsky, Bu Xiangzhi and Bareev. (Tournament site here [in Russian] or here [in English].)
The Aeroflot Open begins shortly after Moscow concludes, running from February 8 to 19. According to TWIC, the field is scheduled to include such players as Bacrot, Bu Xiangzhi, Cheparinov, Motylev, Khalifman, Naiditsch, Nepomniatchi, Sargissian, Sasikiran, Smirin, Timofeev, Vachier-Lagrave, Van Wely and Zvjaginsev. (Tournament site here.)
Finally, the biggie: Linares. It will run from February 12 to 25 in Linares, Spain (and only there: no halves in Morelia or Dubai), and will feature Topalov, Aronian, Gelfand, Grischuk, Gashimov and local player Vallejo Pons in a double round-robin. (Tournament site here.) Surprisingly, TWIC reports that this is Gashimov's first super-GM event, but this it true only in a very narrow sense. Maybe he hasn't played here or in Dortmund, but the Grand Prix events last year were essentially super-GM tournaments. Here he'll only have players in the upper 2700s (except for Vallejo), but that's not that much of a break from a field with high and low 2700s, so I think he'll do fine. (I doubt he'll win the event, but I don't think he'll do badly or be anywhere near outclassed. He should fit right in.)
Reader Comments (4)
How could you forget to mention American IM Alex Lenderman is only half point out of first as well at the GIBtel?
Oh, it's very easy: the Lenderman Sycophant Society forgot to pay their dues this month, so this is my way of getting revenge. Heh heh heh.
Seriously, this "forget to mention" line is getting a bit old. Readers: Just because I don't mention a particular detail you find interesting doesn't mean that I "forgot" it. For fans of women's chess, I also didn't forget that four women are in the big tie. With 14 people in that tie, I limited my "remembering" to the two biggest names, and offered a link so others could find more info.
Fair enough. I just thought the way this website was designed that it was easy to just click 'usa' and see how the folks are doing. I guess i'll pay more dues next time.
That's right: you'll all have to at least double your current contribution level for that kind of coverage.