Alekseev wins Aeroflot Open in Capablanca style
Moscow, 28th February
Grandmaster Evgeny Alekseev, the winner of the Russian championship superfinal, took clear first the Aeroflot Open 2007 – for the first time in the tournament’s history, by the way. In between Evgeny won the St. Petersburg blitz championship, so the Aeroflot victory has completed a hattrick for him. Alekseev is a well-rounded player. His ideal is Capablanca – simple but very sound positional chess with small combinations. The presence of experienced Igor Khenkin, who helped Evgeny at this tournament, added a touch of fine psychological approach to the opponents, which yielded a couple of valuable victories.
Evgeny Tomashevsky, another promising Russian, finished second, outmatching Dmitry Jakovenko by the narrowest of margins – a single point in combined rating of the opponents! Tomashevsky is also a positional player, but in a more original way. The Saratov grandmaster may be lacking top opening preparation, but he is a cunning strategist, and his hold is deadly.
Jakovenko is developing a Keres-syndrome – recently he finishes second in every important tournament. The superfinal, Pamplona, Wijk aan Zee B, and now Aeroflot – quite a streak! Make sure you bet on the right man in the coming Poikovsky.
Chinese players Wang Yue and Ni Hua somewhat surprisingly participated in the 2nd place tie, winning their last round games. Overall the Chinese participants made a significant impact in the Aeroflot this year, and no wonder that two of them finished among the top prize winners.
Source: www.hindu.com
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