Ivanchuk Wins At Petrov Memorial With The King's Gambit

Lots of strong grandmasters gathered in Jurmala, Latvia over the weekend to play in the Vladimir Petrov Memorial.

GM Vladimir Malakhov of Russia won the blitz section; GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine clinched first prize in the rapid.

Ivanchuk won the rapid | Photo Maria Emelianova.

Time flies. It was five years ago when GM Alexei Shirov switched back federations to Latvia. Ever since, he has been active at a tournament organized in his home country. One of his events is the annual Petrov Memorial.

Vladimir Petrov was a Latvian chess master who lived in the first half of the 20th century. He shouldn't be confused with Alexander Dmitrievich Petrov, the Russian player of the mid-19th century whose name is connected to the opening moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6.

The "Latvian Petrov" was quite a strong player; for example he tied for first with Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr at Kemeri in 1937, ahead of Alexander Alekhine, Paul Keres, Endre Steiner, Saviely Tartakower, Reuben Fine, Gideon Stahlberg and others. He died tragically in a Soviet camp during the Second World War.

It is great to see that the Vladimir Petrov Memorial has become an annual event, where many strong players participate each time. It was held March 6-8 at the Jurmala City Museum in Jurmala, Latvia.

On Friday a blitz tournament was held at the Amber Beach resort in Jurmala. The time control was three minutes plus three seconds for each move starting with the first move.

After 10 rounds the Russian grandmaster Vladimir Malakhov emerged as the winner. The top seed edged out GM Daniel Fridman, GM Valentina Gunina and GM Loek van Wely on tiebreak after this group of four had finished on eight points.

2015 Petrov Memorial | Blitz, Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

More prestigious was the rapid tournament held on Saturday and Sunday in the Jurmala City Museum. Some big names played, such as GM Sergey Karjakin, GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, GM Boris Gelfand, GM Evgeny Tomashevsky, GM Vassily Ivanchuk, GM Arkadij Naiditsch, GM Alexander Morozevich and GM Richard Rapport.

In this tournament, an 11-round Swiss, the time control was 15 minutes for each player plus six seconds increment for each move.

Good old GM Vassily Ivanchuk managed to win this event as the only player finishing on 9.0/11. Tied for second place were GM Sergey Karjakin, GM Boris Gelfand and GM Richard Rapport.

It's always interesting to see how Ivanchuk, who plays just about every opening himself, responds to sidelines. He simply chose a King's Indian type of setup against Rapport's 1.b3, and had no trouble against further creativity from the Hungarian player.

Ivanchuk also defeated GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov as Black, from a Nimzo-Indian.

Against GM Sergey Karjakin, Ivanchuk played the romantic King's Gambit. Throughout his career the Ukrainain genius has been quite successful winning against that opening from the black side, but that didn't stop him from using it to beat his former compatriot:

2015 Petrov Memorial | Rapid, Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)