The Russian carrier has sponsored this strong 'open' for many years in February of each year.
The top section (A1) can be considered as the strongest of all tournaments of its type.
There are 75 GMs from the eighty participants, 45 being over 2600 and the two Frenchmen, Vachier-Lagrave and Bacrot, being over 2700.
There are five leading female players to add some spice to proceedings.
In the first tournament players must (with a few exceptions) have an Elo rating greater than 2549. The prize fund of 70.000 € is of course impressive.
Even the second tournament (A2) is remarkable by the standards of anywhere except Moscow: sixty-six players rated between (in principle some of the lady players are actually slightly lower) 2399 and 2550, with a prize fund of 36.000€.
Here are the standings of the leaders going into the last round.
6 points
GM Quang Liem Le VIE 2647
GM Ngoc Truong Son Nguyen VIE 2616
5.5 points
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi RUS 2658
GM Boris Grachev RUS 2653
GM Anton Korobov UKR 2648
5 points
GM Boris Savchenko RUS 2638
GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave FRA 2730
GM Krishnan Sasikiran IND 2653
GM Etienne Bacrot FRA 2713
GM Artyom Timofeev RUS 2652
GM Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2660
GM Evgeny Bareev RUS 2643
GM Wesley So PHI 2656
GM Jianchao Zhou CHN 2632
GM Alexander Motylev RUS 2697
GM Gabriel Sargissian.ARM 2680
Official site for more information official site
