After finishing shared first at the Moscow Open, Le Quang Liem continues strongly at the Aeroflot Open. The Vietnamese grandmaster leads with 3/3 - he's the only player left with a 100% score.

The 9th Aeroflot Open takes place February 9-17 2010 in Moscow, Russia. It's one of the biggest tournaments (and certainly the strongest) of the calendar, and as always sponsored by airline company Aeroflot and organized by the Russian Chess Federation in cooperation with the Committee on Tourism of the Municipality of Moscow. The festival has the same prize fund as in 2009 amounting a total of 180,000 EUR (which includes the prizes for the World Blitz Qualification Tournament which will be held afterwards).

Time flies; it's already five years ago that yours truly played in the event, which took place in the famous Hotel Russia next to Red Square for the last time in 2005 (the hotel, the biggest in the world, doesn't exist anymore). Already for the fifth time, the Aeroflot Open is held outside the city centre, in hotel "Gamma - Delta" of the tourist complex “Izmailovo", where almost all participants also stay.

The 'Delta' section of the hotel complex

As always, the players are divided by rating over four open tournaments (A1, A2, B and C). Naturally, the greatest interest is aroused by the A1 tournament, in which a rating above 2550 is required. Top seeds in this group are the two top GMs from France Vachier-Lagrave (2730) and last year's winner Etienne Bacrot (2713). Their main rivals are Alexander Motylev (2697), Gata Kamsky (2693) and Andrei Volokitin (2692). Other big names include Ivan Cheparinov, Bu Xiangzhi, Alexander Khalifman, Gabriel Sargissian, Arkadij Naiditsch, Wesley So, Evgeny Bareev, Loek van Wely, Luke McShane, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hou Yifan, Marie Sebag and Nadezhda and Tatiana Kosintseva.

Hotel 'Gamma - Delta' of the tourist complex 'Izmailovo'

18-year-old Le Quang Liem became World Youth Champion Under-14 in July 2005, and continues to improve rapidly. In September last year he won the 4th Kolkata Open ahead of 13 higher-rated players and last week he finished shared first at the Moscow Open with an undefeated 7/9. At the Aeroflot Open he's the only player who won his first three games.

Jianchao Zhou vs Vachier-Lagrave and next to them Le Quang Liem, who beat Bu Xiangzhi in round 3

Photos © Eldar Mukhatemov, more here

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC