Alekhine Memorial Round 8

French hearts were broken in the penultimate round of the Alekhine Memorial in St.Petersburg when co-leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave unexpectedly lost to Nikita Vitiugov.

Nikita Vitiugov had drawn all his games since a painful first round loss to Vladimir Kramnik, so he now has an even score again.

The beneficiary of Vachier-Lagrave's first loss is Boris Gelfand who managed to hold Vladimir Kramnik to a draw in a long game despite looking to be in real trouble. Gelfand now leads alone with 5/8 points.

All the other games in round eight ended as draws.

The Alekhine Memorial Standings after 8 rounds

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The pairings for the final round

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Nikita Vitiugov inflicted Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's first loss of the tournament

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Boris Gelfand is an inveterate piece-twirler while he is thinking!

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Laurent Fressinet drew his game with Lev Aronian

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Mickey Adams held Ding Liren to a draw

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Vishy Anand didn't make an impression on Peter Svidler

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The Alekhine Memorial takes place from 21 April - 1 May. The official site can be found here, with live game analysis here and video commentary here (with archive).

The tournament is a 10-player single round robin competition, with the first half held in the Louvre in Paris and the second half in the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg.

The time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes to a finish with a 30 second increment from the start.  No draw offers are allowed until after 40 moves have been played.  The prize fund is €100,000 with €30,000 for first place.

All rounds start at 14:00 local time (12:00 UTC when in Paris, 10:00 UTC when in St. Petersburg), except the last round which is one hour earlier.

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The schedule of events

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Games via TWIC. Screenshots from the official website coverage.