Aeroflot Blitz

Associated with the Aeroflot Open, and as a helpful de facto warm-up for the Tal Memorial, there was a very strong Aeroflot blitz event on March 1. There doesn't seem to be a PGN file of the games, which is a pity as the player list included Mamedyarov, Nakamura, Karjakin, Nepomniachtchi, Vidit, Fedoseev, Mamedov, Andreikin, Dubov, and Artemiev, to name just the 2700+ players that I noticed. (There were of course plenty of near- and ex-2700s as well, including Matlakov, Gelfand, Inarkiev, Kamsky, Korobov etc.)

Here are the top 40 finishers in the 210 player field:

1. Nepomniachtchi 15/18

2-3. Nakamura, Andriasian 14

4-8. Mamedov, Artemiev, Gelfand, Maghsoodloo, Vidit 13

9-11. Sjugirov, Esipenko, Firouzja 12.5

12-24. Mamedyarov, Andreikin, Inarkiev, Karjakin, Mozharov, Savchenko, Dubov, Korobov, Zhigalko, Sychev, Nigmatov, Jumabaev, Predke 12

25-35. Matlakov, Fedoseev, Piorun, Nihal, Tabatabaei, Shinkevich, Tari, Aleseenko, Seliverstov, Petrosian, Gasanov 11.5

36-40. Kamsky, Lysyj, Bologan, Hayrapetyan, Romanov (and probably many others) 11

Nepomniachtchi defeated Mamedov 2-0 in the last round (each round was a double-round, with players having a game each with White and Black) to take clear first. Mamedov started fantastically with 13/14, but lost the second game of his mini-match with Andriasian in the penultimate round before losing twice to Nepo. As you'll see in the game section, his initial loss to Nepomniachtchi was a disaster, but he had great winning chances in the last game. Had he converted, there would have been a four-way tie for first.

As for games: I've entered a few from the videos, and received an additional one from Mark Crowther of TWIC fame. Have a look. As for the videos, search for "Aeroflot open blitz 2018" and YouTube will provide plenty of results.