24th February, 2003

THE Moldavian GM Viktor Bologan scored one of his biggest wins of recent
years, as a last round victory gave him first on tiebreak ahead of a
stellar field at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow, one of strongest Open
events of all-time.

Bologan, GMs Alexei Aleksandrov and Alexei Fedorov of Belarus and
Russia's Peter Svidler all scored 7/9 in the top-rated Group 'A',
finishing ahead of a cosmopolitan field of 201 that included 143
grandmasters to tie for first. However, Bologan took the jackpot first
prize of $25,000 and trophy on tiebreak (average ELO of his opponents).
On top of the prize money, Bologan also gets an automatic berth into the
July elite tournament in Dortmund, Germany. Although the likable
Moldavian has been playing in open events of late (as well as acting as
a very capable second to FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov), he
won't be out of place at Dortmund - he's had several victories at
top-notch round-robins in the past, such as Pamplona (2001), Poikovsky
(2001), Tan Chin Nam Cup (2000), Belfort (1999) and the Keres Memorial
(1998).

Just a half point behind on 6.5/9 was six Russian GMs, Evgeniy Najer,
Alexander Galkin, Sergey Rublevsky, Konstantin Sakaev, Alexey Dreev and
Pavel Smirnov. Among the 18 in a multi-tie on 6/9 included leading
grandmasters such as Alexander Morozevich, Mikhail Ulibin and Sergey
Dolmatov of Russia, Bu Xianghazi of China, Emil Sutovsky of Israel,
defending champion Gregory Kaidanov of the US and Julio Granda Zuniga of
Peru.

Nearly 500 players from 38 countries, ranging from unrated to
grandmasters, took part in the festival, which is split into three
groups with a record prize fund for an Open of $150,000. Alexander
Shorokhov, a 15-year-old IM from Russia, dominated the 170-player Group
'B', taking the first prize of $6,000 with a score of 7.5/9; Sergei
Bairachny of Ukraine likewise dominating Group 'C', with his almost
perfect score of 6.5/7 winning the $3,000 first prize.

V Bologan - J Granda Zuniga
Aeroflot Open 'A', (9)
Sicilian Paulsen
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e6 5 Nc3 Qc7 6 Be2 a6 7 0-0 Nf6 8 Be3
Bb4 9 Na4 Bd6 10 g3 Nxe4 11 Bf3 Nf6 12 Nb6 Rb8 13 Nxc6 bxc6 14 Nc4 Be7
15 Bf4 Qa7 16 Nd6+ Kf8 17 c4 Ne8 18 Nxe8 Kxe8 19 Bxb8 Qxb8 20 Rb1 c5 21
a3 a5 22 Qa4 Qc7 23 Rfd1 f5 24 Rd3 Kf7 25 Qb5 Bf6 26 Rbd1 Rd8 27 Rd6 Bd4
28 R1xd4 cxd4 29 c5 e5 30 Qc4+ Ke7 31 Qd5 Re8 32 Qxe5+ 1-0

JOHN B HENDERSON