Ivanchuk wins 5th GP, Aronian secures overall victory
23 August 2009, 18.35 CET | Last modified: 15:03 | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
Vassily Ivanchuk won the 5th FIDE Grand Prix in Jermuk today by defeating Vladimir Akopian, while co-leader Peter Leko lost his last-round game to Boris Gelfand. Levon Aronian beat Ernesto Inarkiev and finished second (together with Gelfand) which meant the Armenian top grandmaster has won the overal FIDE Grand Prix Series with one tournament still to be played. Full, pictorial report.
The 5th tournament in the FIDE Grand Prix Series took place in Jermuk, Armenia. It was a 14-player round-robin with Aronian, Jakovenko, Leko, Gelfand, Bacrot, Kamsky, Karjakin, Eljanov, Alekseev, Akopian, Ivanchuk, Cheparinov, Inarkiev and Kasimdzhanov. More info on the GP and Jermuk in our preview.
Round 13
With a wonderful last-round victory with Black against Akopian, Vassily Ivanchuk became the deserved winner of the 5th FIDE Grand Prix in Jermuk, Armenia. Akopian’s way of avoiding the Ruy Lopez didn’t give him the slightest advantage and with a repetition at hand, Ivanchuk decided to play for a win with 32…f5. And why not? The resulting ending was clearly better for Black, with a bishop pair and a better pawn structure, and despite defending tenaciously, Akopian couldn’t cope with the problems set by his opponent.
Poor Leko suffered another “trademark” last-round loss, with Black against Gelfand, who also exploited the advantage of the two bishops – something we also saw at the NH Chess Tournament, in Ljubojevic-Stellwagen, so plenty of instructive material on that theme in just one week! The Hungarian also went down in the last round of the previous Grand Prix (against Aronian) and, well, who doesn’t remember the last game of his World Championship match against Kramnik?
As could be expected, Aronian won his last game in Jermuk against Inarkiev and so Armenia’s number one grandmaster has already secured the overall Grand Prix title, playing only three of his four GP tournaments! It’s still unclear where the last event, scheduled for December, will take place, and it’s a bit ironic that due to FIDE’s change of the ongoing cycle, they still need to hold it. In the old situation, Aronian would play the winner of the 2009 World Cup, but now that the number two of the Grand Prix also qualifies for the Candidates Tournament, FIDE will find it harder to just cancel that 6th event. Radjabov and Wang Yue, for example, can still improve their score by performing better than their worst tournament so far, and try to finish in clear second place.
Politics and statistics aside, the Jermuk Grand Prix was the best of the five tournaments as far as chess was concerned, and from what we saw on the official website, the location and venue was just great. We can only hope that the Armenians want to continue organizing FIDE events.
Round 13 games
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Jermuk Grand Prix 2009 | Final Standings
Jermuk Grand Prix 2009 | Schedule & results
FIDE Grand Prix 2009 | Standings after 5 events
After five tournaments, the guaranteed series winner is Levon Aronian. Participants in red can’t qualify for the top 2 places anymore. Gata Kamsky can’t qualify for the top 2 places, but he has been granted a place in the Candidates tournament.
Q = Qualification: CH = World Championship, CP = World Cup, RL = rating list, RR = reserve rating list, PR = presidential nominee, HC = host city nominee | Source: Wikipedia
The winner explaining his moves and thoughts for the last time, but as animated as always
Aronian still pondering about a certain move, but already with a convincing overall GP victory in the pocket
Grand Prix series winner Aronian and Jermuk Champ Ivanchuk with the top Armenian women chess players
The staple black and white modern dance routine at the closing ceremony
Below the rotunda playing hall
Traditional Armenian dancing
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Aronian receives his award for joint second place.jpg
Ivanchuk the champion at the podium
Fireworks above the crowd...
...a final blow closing off the 5th and best Grand Prix event so far
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bagus..bagus Chuky!!
Wow.. Ivanchuk did it again! But look at his amazing swings in live rating. That’s as amazing as his performance (undefeated) in this tournament!
finally officially back in the top 10 (Chucky has always been a top 3 player in the world for 15 years or more)
the only player worth paying to watch play or interview since king Kasparov.
Nope. Officially Ivanchuk is still 2703. And it will be until next FIDE rating list comes out.
I guess Jermuk Grand Prix was the most interesting tournament so far (Chessvibes, ChessBase, Chesspro accept it unanimously). So many decisive games, such a beautiful nature, modern and comfortable playing hall together with ancient cultural environment. Congratulations to organizers in Armenia, great job is done… and of course to Misterrrrrr Vassili… who, I can’ hear you, IVANCHUKKKK.
Kudos to Aronian as well, the winner of the whole Grand Prix cycle with still one leg to be played, this is really impressive. 2815 rat. perf.- 15 wins, just 4 losses and 20 draws.
It would be great to organize in this place another big event – maybe Candidates Matches?
@me: Formally you are right, but it is OK to “anticipate” the next FIDE list due 1st September. It is virtually certain that Ivanchuk will be back in the top 10. Until then, Svidler and Nakamura could push him down to #11 on the live rating list – if both play VERY well in the remaining rounds of “Rising Stars vs. Experience”. But this event will probably not be included in the next FIDE list.
One shouldn’t use word officially if it doesn’t know what it means
A rare case when I end up defending Ceann
: He merely left out a few words: His first sentence should read: Finally Ivanchuk WILL BE officially back in the top 10 (in the foreseeable future, more precisely eight days from now).
Very impressive GP series by Aronian, one for the history books, imo.
Very good tournament… Although it’s a pity that many games were decided by blunders, both of defending and attacking sides.
Well done, Ivanchuk.
But I find Aronian’s performance even more impressive. 3 tournaments, twice clear winner and now second place. I think he showed that he may be the best player in the world *right now* with Anand and Topalov hardly playing. Although he also showed his ‘ability’ to lose once in a while seemingly without a struggle – this shouldn’t happen too often if he wants to be the ‘real’ best player in the world.
Very nice article, congratulations for Ivanchuk for his great performance. He showed us all, that his rating doesn’t show his real strength.