Aeroflot Ends: Le Quang Wins Again on Tiebreak
Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 3:52PM Aeroflot 2011 has come to an end, and in the final results we have a three-way tie for first with Le Quang Liem, Nikita Vitiugov (who beat Ivan Cheparinov with Black in the last round) and Evgeny Tomashevsky all finishing with 6.5/9. Le's name is listed first, though, so I assume until I see otherwise (or until one of my eager readers informs me to the contrary) that he has repeated as champion and will be making a second straight trip to Dortmund. Very impressive!
Seven players finished half a point back, including one Gata Kamsky. Despite not being in great form, he still finished in the money and with a TPR higher than his current rating, thanks to a strong finish with three straight wins. It wasn't a fantastic performance by any means, but hopefully it's a good tune-up before the Candidates - or rather, before the U.S. Championship and then the Candidates.
Aeroflot 2011
Reader Comments (6)
Yes, Le Quang Liem is official first and should get the Dortmund invitation. Regulations including tiebreak criteria are elsewhere on the tournament homepage:
- first tiebreaker is color balance (favoring Le and Vitiugov over Tomashevsky)
- second tiebreaker is average opponents' rating excluding the highest- and lowest-rated one (Rat-HiLo in the final results), favoring Le over Vitiugov, and indeed both over Tomashevsky. So color balance was actually irrelevant after all - but if Le had white against Mamedov in the last round (still scoring a draw), Vitiugov would have been the official winner and Dortmund participant.
As discussed here earlier, two Dortmund spots may still be open - maybe the organizers will invite both Le and Vitiugov? Chances might have been higher if they _have to_ invite Vitiugov (second Russian after Kramnik), and _choose to_ invite Le Quang Liem !?
BTW, prize money is split according to the Hort system - if my calculations are correct, this means 16166 Euro for Le, 11166 for Vitiugov, 9666 for Tomashevsky (and roughly 2000 for Kamsky).
TWIC indicates that Le did indeed win on tiebreak. Amazing performance to win such a strong open two years on the bounce.
Take a look at the list of players and final standings for the Aeroflot blitz tournament. For some silly reason they call it a "qualifier" for the World Blitz Championship, but with a player roster like that, it might as well have been the championship!
[DM: Thanks for the tip about that tournament! If games and/or videos become available, I hope someone will let me know. There's no Aronian, Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik or Radjabov, but just about everyone else was there. If Karjakin and Kamsky, to pick out just two prominent names, are part of a tie for 13th-19th place, you know it's a brutally strong event.]
I'll just add that top 6 qualified for the World Blitz Championship.
pictures here: http://chess-news.ru/node/1781
Gata Kamsky's own comment on the event: :-) tnanks guys ! I almost made it into blitz championship, it all came down to the last game of the marathon blitz tournament. If i win my 2nd game vs. Vityugov, I qualify. I lost :-) so he went through. But ok, it's blitz and it was major fun. In one game i blundered a whole queen! :-) now that was fun :)
Actually, maybe Kamsky just needed a draw in his second game against Vitiugov to (de facto) qualify - Mamedyarov and Ponomariov on top of the standings might be invited to the main Tal Memorial which means an automatic seed into the blitz event. With the final standings as they are: if Mamedyarov, Ponomariov and Grischuk all play the classical event, Motylev, Mamedov and - never heard of him before - Ismagambetov may have qualified for the blitz?