Alexander Grischuk leads the Superfinal of the Russian Championship with 5 points out of 7 games. He's half a point ahead of Peter Svidler, who lost to Sanan Sjugirov in round 5. In the women's section, Alisa Galliamova is on a superb 6.5/7. Report with game fragments, lightly annotated.

At Moscow’s Central Chess Club the 62nd Russian Championship Superfinal for men and 59th Russian Championship Superfinal for women takes place December 19-30. Play starts daily at 15:00 hrs Moscow time, which is 13:00 CET and 07:00 EST. The last round starts two hours earlier and the only rest day is on the 25th.

The time control in the men's section is 1 hour and 40 minutes for the first 40 moves and then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 10 minutes to end the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from the first. In the women's section it's 1 hour and 30 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes to end the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from the first. The prize fund is US $100,000 for the men and US $40,000 for the women.

Rounds 4-7

After a good start of 2.5/3, Svidler drew relatively quickly with Grischuk in round 5, but then had a terrible off-day against Sjugirov. With Black he played one of his worst games of his entire career, and after a mere 23 moves he was looking at a positional disaster. At that point already he couldn't avoid material losses and so he resigned.

Sjugirov-Svidler, 1-0 in just 23 moves

A good professional, the next day Svidler recovered well and defeated Timofeev nicely with the white pieces. However, the most impressive chess so far has been shown by Alexander Grischuk, who plays solid chess with Black, and strong, active 1.e4 chess with White. He's on an excellent 5/7 with two rounds to go, but his program is not easy: White against Jakovenko and then Black against Alekseev. Half a point behind, Svidler has Alekseev with White and then Tomashevsky with Black.

Alexander Grischuk, the leader with two rounds to go

Alisa Galliamova continued her fantastic form and collected no less than 6.5 points out of 7 games. Only Nadezhda Kosintseva, who is now a full point behind her, managed to draw. Today Galliamova plays against Tatiana Kosintseva, who can do her sister a big favour.

Alisa Galliamova, close to tournament victory

Photos by Mark Gluhovsky and Misha Savinov - more at the official website.

Pairings for the last two days:

Game fragments rounds 4-7

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN: Men | Women