Armenian chess players lose positions in 4th tour of Airport Open championship

February 13, 2010 - 17:15 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net -
On February 12, in the 4th tour of Aeroflot Open championship, Arman Pashikyan drew A1 tournament game with Yevgeni Romanov (Russia) to take 21st position with 2,5 points to his score. Gabriel Sargsyan tied against Vladimir Belov (Russia) in the same tournament. According to 4th tour results, Sargsyan took the 35th place with 2 points to his score and Zaven Andreasyan is on 57th position with 1,5 points.

David Petrosyan and Tigran Kotanjyan lost their games in A2 tournament, dropping to 27th and 30th positions respectively.

Aeroflot Open chess tournament

The Aeroflot Open is an annual open chess tournament played in Moscow and sponsored by the airline Aeroflot. It was established in 2001 by Russian Airline Aeroflot, Association of Chess Federations and Russian Chess Federation, and quickly grew to be the strongest open tournament. The first edition counted around 80 grandmasters, while in the second edition already 150 grandmasters participated.

Aeroflot supports the chess tournament, providing flights for participants and donating money awards.

Aeroflot Open 2002 hosted 370 chess players from 34 countries, including 95 GMs. 476 chess players participated in the tournament next year. Number of participants increased to 644 in 2004. The tournament attracts more and more interest each year.

The tournament consists of 4 rounds (A1, A2, B and C) based on the participants’ ratings and is played in 9 rounds by Swiss system. The main interest is group A1, where the required rating is over 2550 and usually extra-class chess players are included in the group.