A sole leader appeared in the main tournament of the festival – the Moscow Open 2014, the Men’s Premier Cup. It’s Russian grandmaster Pavel Ponkratov. He managed to beat Bartosz Socko (Poland) in the eighth round. 13 players are chasing the leader. The rating favorite, European champion Alexander Moiseenko (Ukraine) is among them. The key game of the ninth round between Moiseenko and Ponkratov will be held at the first board. The Ukrainian chess player will be playing with the white.

There are six leaders in the Women’s Premier Cup. Leader Alina Kashlinskaya (Russia) suffered a loss from the compatriot Olga Girya in the eighth round. Now she has to prove her superiority again. Russian Olga Girya, Alina Kashlinskaya, Daria Charochkina, Baira Kovanova, Aleksandra Goryachkina and Ekaterina Atalik (Turkey) have 6.5 points each.

All prize winners have been defined in the RSSU Men’s Student Grandmaster Cup. All of them are Russians. However, the allocation of the places is still not clear. Vladislav Artemiev has 7 points, Vladimir Belous has one point less. These grandmasters will play against each other in the last round. Andrey Stukopin with 5 points is taking the third line. 

The struggle in the Women’s Student Grandmaster Cup became sharper. Three chess players with 5.5 points are sharing the first place. These are Meri Arabidze (Georgia), Wang Jue (China) and Nafisa Muminova (Uzbekistan). Deimante Daulyte (Lithuania) and Liza Soloviova (Ukraine) with 5 points have a chance to find themselves among the prize winners.

Russian Evgenij Kalegin with 7 points has become a sole leader in the Senior Chess Cup. Evgeniy Sveshnikov (Latvia), Yuri Balashov, Arkadi Vul, Oleg Zilbert and Veniamin Kolbanov (all representing Russia) are half a point behind the leader.

Russian Artem Sadovsky is keeping the lead in the Amateurs’ Chess tournament. He has 7.5 points after the draw in the eighth round. Andrei Gurbanov (Belorussia) and Dmitry Kononenko (Ukraine) are half a point behind him. Seven more players have gained 6.5 points.

We have to mention that the games of the final ninth round will start on Feb 9 at 11:00. The ceremony closing will start at 18:00.