2019 Aeroflot Open

[Chris Rice]

Sasikiran draws his final round game fairly quickly to finish on 6.5 He's been overtaken by Martirosyan (who is a new name to me) and Kulaots also gets to 7/9 Kulaots wins on tiebreak

Pretty stunning win from the Estonian, Külaots. Reactions:

Chess 24 "Congratulations to 42-year-old Estonian GM Kaido Külaots, the shock winner of the 2019 Aeroflot Open after following wins over young stars Maghsoodloo, Firouzja, Dubov and Wei Yi with a last-round win over Denis Khismatullin!"

Sam Shankland "Age is just a number, and rating is just a number. Congrats to Kaido Kulaots (42 y/o, 2542 FIDE) on the biggest upset tournament win I have ever seen! Winning the Aeroflot A group as the 62nd seed ahead of 6 2700+ guys is no joke."

Carlsen (!) "Congrats to Kaido Kulaots for an absolutely amazing underdog victory at the Aeroflot open! 19 years ago, he shared a flat with my father and I at the Gausdal tournament, and inspired an unrated 9 year old by predicting that he would one day be rated 2650"

[Chris Rice]

Like Mick says the guy is new to me as well but Kaido Külaots finally gets his 15 minutes on his 43rd birthday with a 2872 performance.

[Stewart Reuben]

Bernard Cafferty and I played in an open tournament in Vrnajka Bnja in Yugoslavia in 1970. The electricity failed in the whole town, making it impossible to continue. Of course nobody was able to seal a move. i think we played on the unfinished games the following day. it was before the days of FIDE Rating. I think it was 13 rounds in 11 days.

It proved to be a very important tournament. It was there I encountered an embryonic form of quickplay finishes and imported the idea to Islington.