Vassily Ivanchuk won the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba on Monday. The Ukrainian, who finished a point clear of Ian Nepomniachtchi and Leinier Dominguez, won the tournament for the 6th time in his career.

Vassily Ivanchuk against Ian Nepomniachtchi in round 4, with Leinier Dominguez watching | Photo © Columna Deportiva

These are busy times in the chess world, with a World Championship, a U.S. Championship, a round robin in Malmö and a round robin in Havana taking place simultaneously. The latter deserved more attention here than it got, but today we'll catch up with a final report describing the second half of the tournament.

Vassily Ivanchuk was leading by half a point after five rounds, and he managed to keep that lead until the very end. In the 6th round, played on Thursday, May 10th, the Ukrainian drew with Vladimir Potkin. The number two in the leaderboard, Leinier Dominguez, also split the point, with Laznicka. Ian Nepomniachtchi caught Dominguez in second place thanks to the following win which included some nice tactics.

PGN string

The next day the spectators in the Hotel Habana Riviera saw the top encounter Dominguez-Ivanchuk. It's always amazing to realize that Chuky's opening repertoire is even wider than you thought it was! In this game he used the Scandinavian Defence successfully.

PGN string

After round 8 Nepomniachtchi was trailing Ivanchuk by half a point thanks to a win against Laznicka.

PGN string

In the penultimate round Nepomniachtchi had a chance to take over the lead in a direct encounter with Ivanchuk. However, also in this game the leader was nowhere near any danger, on the contrary.

PGN string

The final round saw something very rare for Ivanchuk: he apparently had enough, and drew his white game against Laznicka in a mere 11 moves. This way Nepomniachtchi could still finish in shared first place, but the Russian lost to Dominguez.

PGN string

And so Ivanchuk won what was already his 6th title in Havana. On this page you can find an overview of the history of the Capablanca Memorial tournaments. Miguel Najdorf won the first edition in 1962; Ivanchuk won the tournament in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Capablanca Memorial | Grupo Elite | Schedule and results