Ian Nepomniachtchi and Lev Zverev Grab Lead at Aeroflot Open 2026
Rounds four and five of the XXI edition of the Aeroflot Open 2026 were underway at the Carlton Hotel in Moscow on Monday, March 2.
Before the start of the fifth round, Alexander Tkachev, Executive Director of the Chess Federation of Russia, presented the CFR's Golden Badges to GM Sergey Makarychev and his wife, journalist Marina Makarycheva, for their significant contribution to the development of chess.
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia), who defeated Reza Mahdavi (Iran) and drew with Andrey Esipenko (Russia), and IM Lev Zverev (Russia), who won against Haik Martirosyan (Armenia) and Bardiya Daneshvar (Iran), have scored 4.5 points apiece to grab the lead. We take this opportunity to congratulate Lev on his birthday!
Alexander Grischuk, David Paravyan, Rudik Makarian, Andrey Esipenko, Aleksey Grebnev, Arseniy Nesterov, Pavel Ponkratov, Dmitry Bocharov, Artem Uskov (all from Russia), Dau Khuong Duy (Vietnam), Aram Hakobyan (Armenia), and Mohammad Muradli (Azerbaijan) are half a point behind the leaders.
Sergey Makarichev (Russia) has scored 2 points in the Legends tournament, while Rafael Vaganian (Armenia) and Eugenio Torre (Philippines) have got 1.5 points each.
Kirill Zhelonkin, Vladislav Siverin, and Lev Egorushkin are sharing the lead in the U13 open competition with 4 points each. The girls' event has Alisa Genrietta Yunker with a perfect score.
Round 6 is scheduled for Tuesday, March 3. The games will start at 5 PM Moscow time.
The Aeroflot Open International Chess Tournament is organised by the Chess Federation of Russia and the Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation with the support of Aeroflot. The media partner of the tournament is a social network Odnoklassniki.