САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКАЯ ШАХМАТНАЯ ФЕДЕРАЦИЯ

Press reliz

21th October Chigorine memorial, one of the main Russian chess festivals started.

This year it consists of 4 tournaments - blitz, rapid, main classic tournament that is stage of Russian chess cup and amateur tournament under 2300 ELO.

Blitz and rapid tournaments are sponsored by Forex-companies Akmos Trade and E-Capital.

There are about 40 GM's among more then 250 participants of the festival.

GM Vladimir Belov won Blitz tournament (112 participants) with score 9 out of 11. GM Alexander Lastin and IM Pavel Maletin divided 2th and 3d prizes.

GM Anton Shomoev Rapid tournament (126 participants) with score 6 out of 7. The same score had Boris Savchenko and Stanislav Novikov.

Main tournament (99 participants) of the festival started 23th October at "Carelia" Hotel St. Petersburg. As compared to previous Chigorin memorials, there are much more western European players there.

Few young GM are leading after 4th round. GMs Pavel Smirnov, Boris Savchenko, Anton Shomoev and IM Sergey Sergienko - 3,5 out of 4.

3 points have Vladimir Belov, Dmitry Bocharov, Andrey Rychagov, Pavel Maletin, Andrei Deviatkin, Denis Yevseev, Stanislav Novikov, Spartak Vysochin, Valeri Yandemirov, Vasily Yemelin, Pavel Anisimov, Sergei Zhigalko, Nikita Maiorov, Sergei Yudin, Pavel Zarubin.

Tournament coverage on the official St. Petersburg chess federation page www.totalchess.spb.ru.

Organizing committee.