Alekhine’s Memorial was a unique super tournament held in Paris, France and St. Petersburg, Russia, combining chess and art. You can read more about the idea here.

How did the participants fare at the event? Here is our summary:

Levon Aronian: Won the tournament (5.5/9) due to having more decisive games than Gelfand. Confirmed his status of an elite player and secured his #2 position on the world chess rankings.

Boris Gelfand: Once again proved that he is an amazing player. Scored 5.5/9 and shared first place.

Viswanathan Anand: Lost dramatically to Adams in the very first round, but then showed his champion’s spirit by beating Ding Liren and Fressinet. Bronze for the World Chess Champion (5/9).

Michael Adams: The British chess legend demolished Anand with Black and Svidler with White in the first two rounds. Later he missed a couple of winning opportunities in some of his games (e.g., against Aronian and Vachier-Lagrave) and finished at 4.5/9 after mistakenly claiming a draw by repetition and subsequently losing a game against Kramnik. Not a bad performance, but Michael might as well have won the tournament.

Vachier-Lagrave: Led Alekhine Memorial while on home turf; lost momentum after coming to St. Petersburg (4.5/9). Reason? We blame Justin Bieber!

Nikita Vitiugov: Played solidly and wasn’t intimidated by his experienced opponents. 4.5/9 – a very decent result for the St. Petersburg GM.

Laurent Fressinet: Shocked the public by beating Kramnik with Black in just 32 moves (happens once in a lifetime). Demonstrated a very mature level of play and finished at 4.5/9.

Vladimir Kramnik: For some reason Vladimir has not been successful at Alekhine Memorial. Only a hard-earned victory against Adams in the final round allowed him to reach the 50% mark and stay in the 2800+ club.  

Ding Liren: The three-time Chinese champion has shown too much respect for his opponents. Nevertheless, he defeated Levon Aronian in style and finished only slightly below the expectations: 3.5/9.

Peter Svidler: Peter the Great has a crazy schedule: the Candidates, then Bundesliga, then Russian Team Chess Championship and Alekhine Memorial. Super tournament in Norway is coming up in a few days. All we can wish Peter is: hold on, comrade! Peter’s performance at Alekhine Memorial was disappointing for his spectacular level of play: only 3/9.

Final standings:

1-2. Aronian, Gelfand - 5.5/9
3. Anand - 5
4-8. Vachier-Lagrave, Kramnik, Adams, Vitiugov, Fressinet - 4.5
9. Ding Liren - 3.5
10. Svidler - 3

Replay the games

Official website

Related materials:

Pictures of Levon Aronian & Natalia Pogonina

	1. Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 15:15 01 ìàÿ 2013 ã.
	Bravo Levon

	2. Written by Adragast on 16:43 01 ìàÿ 2013 ã.
	I feel a bit sad for the French players. They were doing quite good (especially MVL) but then ended up away from the podium...  Otherwise, Aronian proved again that he deserves his 2800 rating. Well done! http://www.infobarrel.com/carlsen_anand_head-to-head_and_other_facts

	3. Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 21:50 01 ìàÿ 2013 ã.
	Amateur Anand was again vindicated when he said that Gelfand was a tough nut to crack

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