From the very first round on he was leading, and he finished clear first after round 9: Dmitry Jakovenko. The Karpov Tournament in Poikovsky was a strong, 10-player round robin where a +3 score was enough for the Russian grandmaster. Ruslan Ponomariov finished second with half a point less; Radek Wojtaszek and Alexander Motylev shared third. Former World Championship contender Nigel Short ended in last place.

Dmitry Jakovenko wins in Poikovsky | Photo © Evgeny Vashenyaka courtesy of the Russian Chess Federation

In our previous report we wrote that thanks to his good start (4 out of 5) Jakovenko just needed a few more draws to finish clear first in Poikovsky. And indeed, the 29-year-old GM drew his last two games as well and still ended half a point ahead of Ruslan Ponomariov. Alexander Motylev's shared third place was a good result as well, only one player's TPR was very different from his own rating: Nigel Short's. The Englishman finished in last place. He wasn't in his best shape, but it also showed how strong this field actually was.

In round 8 Sergey Rublevsky added Viktor Bologan to his list of scalps in what seems to be one of his pet lines. It's a wonderfully simple concept against the Najdorf: 6.Bc4, 7.Bb3, 8.Bg5, 9.Qd2, 10.0-0-0 followed by Rhe1, Kb1 and f4. Theoretically speaking it's probably fine (we'll leave this to our ChessVibes Openings editors!) but in practice it's well worth a try!

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His game against Wang Yue must have been some sort of déjà vu for Nigel Short. We have already seen how he lost an ending an exchange up against Bruzon, and the following loss was completely unnecessary too: 

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In round 8 Ruslan Ponomariov once again showed how strong an endgame player he is. Sit back and enjoy:

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Karpov Tournament (Poikovsky) 2012 | All results

Karpov Tournament (Poikovsky) 2012 | Round 9 standings