Aerosvit 2008: Carlsen wins by a full point

I think he will become world no 1 less than 2 years. I will monitor his progress in this blog. i'm so admired with his game and excelent. Good luck Magnus Carlsen.

Read full article about the tournament( source from chessbase and chess.com)

19.06.2008 – Alexei Shirov and Andrei Volokitin scored final round victories, while Vassily Ivanchuk won another game, this time against Pavel Eljanov in a queen ending. Magnus Carlsen held Ukrainian co-prodigy Sergey Karjakin to a draw to take the category 19 tournament by a full point, with a 2877 performance. He will be number two in the next world rankings – if FIDE rates this event.


Other prodigies have flattered to deceive and fallen short of the ultimate prize. Still only 17, Magnus Carlsen looks set to rise to No.2 in the FIDE rankings when the next quarterly list is published on 1st July. Only the World Champion Vishy Anand stands between him and the No.1 spot. The stability of the World Chess Championship cycle is hard to predict, but surely a shot at the title will come Magnus' way in the near future. Kasparov who, anyone?

In the final round Carlsen drew with Karjakin to complete the tournament win and so end the tournament undefeated. However, despite the reputation of last rounds of chess events having wall-to-wall drawn results, there were 3 decisive games on the final day.

Plaudits go to Vassily Ivanchuk who defeated Pavel Eljanov to take second place outright. Ivanchuk has been overshadowed by Carlsen here, but has also had a great tournament, with his only loss being at Carlsen's hands in the very first round. Vassily's reward looks set to be a No.3 ranking on the new rating list, pushing Vladimir Kramnik down to No.4.

Another winner in the last round was the ever-popular Alexei Shirov who beat the American Alexander Onischuk with the Black pieces in just 29 moves. Shirov had an inconsistent tournament, but ends it on a high.

The third winner was Andrei Volokitin who overcame Evgeny Alekseev to finish in 5th place. Despite this, he was the lowest placed finisher of the four Ukranians in the event!

Aerosvit provided some great chess and a result which should live long in the memory of chess fans.