5 Share Lead In Aeroflot After Round 7

Now in its 13th edition, the extremely competitive Aeroflot Open is currently taking place in Moscow, Russia. This event, sponsored by the Russian airline Aeroflot, is famous for having three groups: A (Open to 2549+ [!] with a few exceptions), B (2299-2550), and C (U2300).

All photos in this report courtesy of Amruta Mokal. More pictures can be found on her Facebook page.

After seven tough rounds in the A group, five grandmasters share the lead with 5.0/7: Boris Gelfand (Israel), Maxim Matlakov (Russia), Evgeniy Najer (Russia), Vladimir Fedoseev (Russia), and Mateusz Bartel (Poland). An additional 15 players trail with 4.5/7. The overall winner of the tournament will qualify into the annual Dortmund super-tournament (usually held in the summer), and the total prize fund for the event is 140,000 euros.

Already the first round produced plenty of upsets (if we can call them that), including this interesting win by GM Vladimir Potkin over one of the top seeds in the event, Chinese prodigy GM Wei Yi:

As is typical for most high-level open tournaments, the leaders can change from round to round and often take different paths. Gelfand, the top seed, drew his first two rounds and slowly fought his way to the top with wins over GMs Anton Demchenko, Lu Shanglei, and Boris Grachev. Conversely, Najer emerged as the sole leader after winning his first three rounds before being slowed down by four straight draws.

Here's Gelfand's long grinding win over Grachev from round six, nursing an extra pawn for quite some time before finally achieving victory in a queen endgame: 

Despite a fast start, the 2015 European Champion has drawn his last four games. (Photo: Amruta Mokal)

From the same round, Matlakov had an impressively smooth victory over GM Robert Hovhannisyan:

Maxim Matlakov has brought his "A-game" both in terms of chess and in terms of sweaters. (Photo: Amruta Mokal.)

Meanwhile, Bartel outplayed GM Vladislav Artemiev in a "Dragodorf"-type Sicilian:

Mateusz Bartel hopes to reproduce his result from 2012, when he won the event on tiebreak. (Photo: Amruta Mokal.)

Then in round seven, Fedoseev took advantage of a blunder by GM Axel Bachmann to catch up to the leaders:

Vladimir Fedoseev will finally reach the top boards in round eight. (Photo: Amruta Mokal.)

Round eight takes place tomorrow, March 8, with the following pairings on the top boards: Bartel - Gelfand, Fedoseev - Najer, Matlakov - Bu Xiangzhi (4.5/7). Look for coverage of the final rounds of the event in a future report.

2016 Aeroflot Open | Round 7 Standings

(Full standings here.)