GM Vladislav Artemiev won the 12th Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix. The Russian grandmaster beat his compatriot GM Boris Grachev 2-0 in the knockout final. GM Haik Martirosyan of Armenia continues to lead the overall Grand Prix standings.
The next Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix will be played on August 25 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.
The 12th Speed Chess Grand Prix tournament was held on Tuesday, August 18, with 773 participants. Artemiev got the “double” as he also finished clear first in the Swiss part, scoring 9/10.
The biggest names for over-the-board chess didn’t make it to the final eight this time: GMs Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, and Peter Svidler all failed to make the cut. Grischuk lost in the penultimate round to the biggest name who did make it (Artemiev) but missed a mate in two:
Artemiev won alone, ahead of Grachev. The other six players on 8.5 points who qualified were GMs Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran), Boris Savchenko (Russia), Grigoriy Oparin (Russia), Baadur Jobava (Georgia), Maksim Chigaev (Russia), and S.L. Narayanan (India).
Artemiev defeated Narayanan and Oparin to reach the final of the knockout, while Grachev eliminated Chigaev and Jobava. The latter two won one each, after which the Georgian GM suffered from a premove blunder in the first bullet game:
Artemiev, who also won the very first Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix, convincingly won both games in the final. Here’s the first, in which he outplayed his opponent and got a nice center, then a space advantage and finally a winning counter-attack.
Artemiev won the $1,000 first prize and 12 GP points while Grachev took second ($500 and eight GP points). Jobava and Oparin both won $200 and four GP points, while the losing quarterfinalists each earned $100 and two GP points.
Like last week, WGM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya won the $100 prize for being the top-scoring female player.
The Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix is presented by Gambit, where you can play classic games like Reversi, Backgammon, and Oh Ship with players from around the world.