Gibraltar 21 to 29 January 2019

[JustinHorton]

He got him anyway

[Mick Norris]

Aronian, Levon vs Howell, David W L 0-1

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nc6 5. c3 Qc7 6. h3 g6 7. Qc2 f6 8. Ne2 e5 9. O-O Nge7 10. dxe5 fxe5 11. c4 e4 12. Bxe4 dxe4 13. Nbc3 Bg7 14. Nd5 Qd6 15. Bf4 Be5 16. Rad1 Bxf4 17. Ndxf4 Qe5 18. b4 Nxb4 19. Qb3 Nbc6 20. c5 Qxc5 21. Nc3 Qb4 22. Qc2 O-O 23. Ncd5 Nxd5 24. Nxd5 Qa3 25. Rfe1 Bf5 26. Re3 Qa5 27. Qc4 Rf7 28. Nf6+ Kg7 29. Rd5 Be6

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Impressive victory by 20-year-old Russian GM Vladislav Artemiev to win the tournament (8.5/10, 7 wins, 3 draws, performance rating of 2941). He is now number 20 in the world in the live ratings, and is being touted as "the new Vlad" (a reference to Kramnik's retirement).

[Chris Rice]

Chess.com report on the last round including the surprising revelation about the winner

"Artemiev won £25,000 for his win–not a bad haul and quite useful since he just got married three months ago. Maybe he can now take a taxi to the tournament next year.

For this year, he stayed in Spain, crossing the border on foot each day and walking around 45 minutes to reach the host Caleta Hotel. This might be the largest event ever won by a player who was staying in another country while competing!"

[Kevin Thurlow]

"This might be the largest event ever won by a player who was staying in another country while competing!"

Almost certainly! Malmo (Sweden) is on the border with Denmark, but the tournament is probably not as big as Gibraltar... Someone needs to run a massive tournament in Berwick or near the Welsh-English border.

[JustinHorton]

It's a nice little question, isn't it? There's been other events in microstates of course (the Monaco tournaments come to mind) but you'd guess that if they were as substantial as Gibraltar, the top players would all be staying close by, as they presumably were here.