The grandmaster from St. Petersburg Ildar Khairullin left the playing area immediately after the fourth round was over. We were afraid that the athlete having a 100% result wants to avoid the journalists. However, Ildar kindly agreed to meet at the hotel hall, preferring a lively talk to a skype chat. It turned out that there was a special reason for that.

- Ildar, how many times have you played at the Moscow Open?
- That’s a very complicated and a straight away question (laughing). It’s hard to remember immediately. I think, it’s my fifth time.

On Wednesday, Feb 4 the Russian State Social University hosted the games of the fourth round in six tournaments of the Moscow Open 2014, 10th RSSU Chess Cup. Many participants of the festival have a 100% record according to the current results.

Boris Grachev and Ildar Khairullin representing Russia share the first and the second places at the Moscow Open Premier Russian Cup. Both grandmasters have 4 wins balance and will face each other in the next round. Eight players have 0,5 points less than the leaders.

Our regular review of the creative achievements of the Moscow Open 2014 participants is devoted to the events of the first two days of the competition. The attention of our commentator was focused on two elegant miniatures performed by young grandmasters from St. Petersburg. The game of the second round will be remembered due to the collapse of one of the favorites. 

Today we are talking to the participant of the Moscow Open 2014, RSSU Women’s Student Grandmaster Cup, the grandmaster from Uzbekistan Nafisa Muminova. At the moment she is the only player who has a 100% result at the students’ competitions. It turned out that Nafisa has come to Moscow together with her younger sister.

- Nafisa, we are glad to meet you at the Moscow Open festival. How often do you come to Russia?
- Hello! Thank you. It’s my third time in Russia. First time I came to Nalchik in 2008 for the World Championship. I was also in Khanty-Mansiysk at the World Championship in 2012.

Last year turned to be quite successful for a young Moscow chess player Maria Severina. She became a World Women’s U18 Blitz champion, a bronze medalist of the World Women’s U18 Chess Championship. Chess successes didn’t prevent Maria to enter a prestigious capital university. And now she is a participant of the Moscow Open 2014, RSSU Women’s Student Grandmaster Cup.

- Good afternoon, Masha. How is it all going on at the tournament for you?
- That’s the most complicated Moscow Open in my career. My brains are nearly boiling. The opponents are very strong, they create many problems.

Several favorites couldn’t take the win in the third round games of the Moscow Open 2014, RSSU Cup and had to be satisfied with the drawn results.

At the Moscow Open Premier Russian Cup European Champion Alexander Moiseenko (Ukraine) shared the point with another Ukrainian player Vitaliy Sivuk, Russian Maxim Matlakov finished a game with Rustam Khusnutdinov (Kazakhstan) with the drawn result, Mateusz Bartel (Poland) didn’t manage to take a win in the game against Tigran Simonian (Armenia). Besides, Russian grandmasters Dmitry Kokarev and Pavel Ponkratov couldn’t beat young compatriots Kirill Kozionov and Daniil Yuffa correspondingly; both players haven’t reached the age of 17 yet.

Today our annotator Grandmaster Alexander Kalinin will review the creative achievements of the competitors of the Moscow Championship Superfinals.

The strongest athletes representing more than 30 countries of the world are the participants of the Moscow Open 2014, 10th International RSSU Cup. Not only titled grandmasters compete at the tournament, but also young chess players, champions of their schools.

Four rounds of the children’s tournaments have already finished, but the favorites are still not defined. The RSSU communication department coresspondents have prepared a small video. They are talking to young chess players, their parents and the head arbiter, international Arbiter of the tournament Mikhail Kryukov.

The additional program of the Moscow Open 2014, RSSU Cup includes 2 Japanese chess - shogi tournaments. The first of them Shogi + chess was held last weekend. 20 players, including representatives of Germany and Ukraine took part in the Tournament. Moscow hosts this biathlon for the third time, and that’s the second time for the Moscow Open. The first competition took place in Dec 2012 at the Moscow Christmas festival. That event proved that the tournaments of that kind are interesting for the intellectual games lovers.

Boris Mirnik (Germany) celebrated the victory according to the results of the two-day battles. International chess grandmaster Sergey Krivosheya (Ukraine) is a silver medalist, and Igor Sinelnikov wins the bronze medal.

Just before the Moscow Open 2014, Women’s Premier Russian Cup, Daria Charochkina treated herself with a nice present - she won the Moscow Chess Championship Superfinal. Happy Daria answered the questions of our website correspondent immediately after the tournament results were announced. The official closing ceremony will take place on Feb 9.

- Daria, please accept our congratulations! Did you expect the win?
- Thank you. Absolutely not! I thought that if I had a draw in the last round I wouldn’t have any chance to win. Ira (Irina Vasilevich) and I had quite a tough game. I was waiting for the mistake from my opponent’s side but finally it was me who made a mistake.  I

One of the most important features of the Moscow Open festival is friendly international communication. Annually chess players representing different CIS countries and other countries of the world participate in the festival. Today we are talking to the grandmaster from Yerevan Zaven Andriasian, who participates in the Men’s RSSU Student Grandmaster Cup.

- Good afternoon, Zaven. How often do you travel to Russia and how many times have you participated in the Moscow Open?
- Good afternoon. I come to Russia very often, almost every year. Unfortunately the dates of the Moscow Open festival coincide with the dates of the Championship of Armenia. That’s my second appearance at the festival. 

January 31, 2014 The Organizing Committee of Festival Moscow Open-2014 decided to change the time-control in the tournament “C” due to a great number of participants in our festival.

New time-control is 90 minutes for the game plus 30 seconds per move, starting from the first move.

We are sorry for latest information personally for Mr. Joel Leost (France).

The first two rounds of the open tournaments that are run according to the Swiss system can often become a difficult test for the participants. Sometimes it’s hard for some players, including experienced grandmasters, to enter the game. All of the said above is not about the favorites of the ranking of the Moscow Open 2014, Men’s and Women’s Russian Cup stages. Acting European Champion Alexander Moiseenko and Champion of Russia among Women U20 Anastasia Bodnaruk (St. Petersburg) have scored 2 points each and will play again against the first boards in the third round on Monday, Feb 3.

It’s always nice to see familiar faces at the Moscow Open festival, especially when we are talking about the winners of last year's tournament. We bumped into the triumphant of the Men’s 2013 tournament in the hall at the end of the first competition day, and we just couldn’t pass by without saying a word.

- Boris, we are glad to meet you at the festival again! How many times have you participated in the Moscow Open at RSSU?
- Good afternoon, nice to see you, too. Honestly, I have lost count. For sure more than 5 times.