Artemiev, Jakovenko Win Karpov Poikovsky Tournament
In addition to Norway Chess and the Women's Candidates, a third noteworthy event just finished, the Karpov Tournament in Poikovsky. The winners were Dmitry Jakovenko and Vladislav Artemiev; the latter after winning back-to-back games in the last two rounds to share first. After his poor start (draws in rounds 1 and 2 followed by a spectacular loss to Krishnan Sasikiran, covered on this blog at the time) he recovered, went +3 in the remaining rounds, and maintained his outstanding 2761 rating. For Jakovenko it was of course a fine tournament. His play was more solid, winning two games and losing none.
Almost everyone else finished on 50%: Sasikiran, Ivan Saric, Wang Hao, Vladimir Fedoseev, Anton Korobov, and Andrey Esipenko all scored 4.5 points. Rauf Mamedov almost joined them, but finished another half a point behind, while Vladislav Kovalev finished in last with 3.
Now there's a short lull until the next major event (though if you can't wait, there is the CEZ Chess Trophy, starring a 20' + 10" match between Ding Liren and David Navara. So far Ding is up 2-1, drawing both black games and winning his white game); that's the Grand Chess Tour event in Zagreb, Croatia, starting June 26.