TWIC is 30. First issue 17th September 1994.
IV Menorca Open A 2025 (9)
Vasyl Ivanchuk wins the Menorca Open but only after some good fortune in the final round
Mark Crowther - Sunday 27th April 2025
Logo for Menorca 2025 | https://openchessmenorca.com
Vasyl Ivanchuk scored 8/9 in the Menorca Open to win by half a point from Lu Shanglei and Murali Karthikeyan. Top seed Nihal Sarin over pressed and lost to Murali Karthikeyan who finished on 7.5 points in 3rd place on tie-break behind Lu Shanglei.
More in the body of the article along with the final round game Pranesh-Ivanchuk annotated
Ivanchuk has been playing practically non-stop since mid-February. He started with a very poor 3/9 in the Djerba Masters, then a respectable 7/11 for 42nd place - roughly his expected finishing rank - in the European Individual Championships in Romania, and then 2/3 in the Czech League. After about 10 days off he had a run of two tournaments in a row 9th to 15th in Reykjavik and 22nd to 27th April in Menorca. He took 2nd place on tie-break ahead of a big group with 7/9 in Reykjavik half a point behind the winner Parham Maghsoodloo and now this, his 8/9 win in Menorca.
Ivanchuk is known for his enormous talent and variety of play but also his mercurial temperament that leads to uneven results. At 56 years of age he's shown he can still perform at this level. His days of absolute elite chess are probably behind him but he seems ready for anything else.
In Menorca Ivanchuk for the most part played unpredictably in the opening but also pretty steadily. For instance Ivanchuk chose a solid but passive French Defence against top seed Nihal Sarin in round 5 and was rewarded with a very strange error in the endgame. Ivanchuk was also completely winning against Lu Shanglei in round 7 before allowing the Chinese player to escape with a draw.
Ivanchuk won his final round game against M Pranesh but that was a topsy turvy struggle where one side then the other had the advantage. The engines do not like the way Ivanchuk played the opening at all but Pranesh's 11.Kf1?! (11.Bd2!) allowed Ivanchuk back in the game. 21.Nc7?! and 28.Rhc1? left Ivanchuk close to winning. Ivanchuk then started to get into time trouble and 39.g4? (down to less than a minute) threw away all of his advantage and 42...gxh3? gave Pranesh a winning advantage. Then the game turned around for a final time with 50.Kc2? a losing mistake Pranesh played with nearly half an hour on the clock. Ivanchuk then made no further errors launching a decisive attack on Pranesh's king forcing resignation on move 55. Not a perfect game by any means, but a difficult and fascinating game in all phases.
I think that might be it for a while from Ivanchuk but it's been a really interesting run of events from him.
| IV Menorca Open A 2025 Ciutadella de Menorca ESP Tue 22nd Apr 2025 - Sun 27th Apr 2025
Leading Final Round 9 Standings: |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | SNo | Name | Ti | FED | Rtg | Pts | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 8 | Ivanchuk, Vasyl | GM | UKR | 2604 | 8 | 49.5 | 47,00 | 9 |
| 2 | 7 | Lu, Shanglei | GM | CHN | 2618 | 7.5 | 48.5 | 43,00 | 9 |
| 3 | 4 | Karthikeyan, Murali | GM | IND | 2651 | 7.5 | 45.5 | 39,75 | 9 |
| 4 | 34 | Sosa, Tomas | GM | ARG | 2498 | 7 | 49 | 41,25 | 9 |
| 5 | 26 | Woodward, Andy | GM | USA | 2536 | 7 | 45 | 38,25 | 9 |
| 6 | 58 | Mamedov, Edgar | IM | KAZ | 2453 | 7 | 43.5 | 36,00 | 9 |
| 7 | 2 | Shankland, Sam | GM | USA | 2670 | 7 | 43 | 35,75 | 9 |
| 8 | 1 | Nihal, Sarin | GM | IND | 2687 | 6.5 | 52.5 | 37,75 | 9 |
| 9 | 41 | Suleymenov, Alisher | GM | KAZ | 2478 | 6.5 | 49.5 | 36,25 | 9 |
| 10 | 23 | Pranav, Anand | GM | IND | 2538 | 6.5 | 49 | 36,00 | 9 |
| 11 | 35 | Ghazarian, Kirk | GM | USA | 2493 | 6.5 | 48 | 36,75 | 9 |
| 12 | 11 | Pranesh, M | GM | IND | 2572 | 6.5 | 48 | 36,25 | 9 |
| 13 | 3 | Murzin, Volodar | GM | FID | 2658 | 6.5 | 47.5 | 36,25 | 9 |
| 14 | 31 | Macias Pino, Diego | IM | ESP | 2510 | 6.5 | 47 | 35,75 | 9 |
| 15 | 56 | Zanan, Evgeny | GM | ISR | 2454 | 6.5 | 46.5 | 36,25 | 9 |
| 16 | 6 | Pranav, V | GM | IND | 2628 | 6.5 | 45.5 | 35,25 | 9 |
| 17 | 18 | Matviishen, Viktor | GM | UKR | 2550 | 6.5 | 45.5 | 34.50 | 9 |
| 18 | 27 | Fier, Alexandr | GM | BRA | 2534 | 6.5 | 45 | 33.50 | 9 |
| 19 | 25 | Makhnev, Denis | GM | KAZ | 2537 | 6.5 | 44.5 | 34,75 | 9 |
| 20 | 22 | Dragnev, Valentin | GM | AUT | 2538 | 6.5 | 43 | 32,00 | 9 |
| 21 | 33 | Iermito, Sebastian Dario | IM | ITA | 2499 | 6.5 | 39.5 | 32,75 | 8 |
| 22 | 39 | Baum, Jonasz | IM | POL | 2487 | 6.5 | 39 | 32.50 | 8 |
| 23 | 24 | Raja, Rithvik R | GM | IND | 2538 | 6 | 49 | 33,75 | 9 |
| 24 | 70 | Oro, Faustino | IM | ARG | 2423 | 6 | 48 | 32,25 | 9 |
| 25 | 5 | Puranik, Abhimanyu | GM | IND | 2636 | 6 | 46 | 33.50 | 9 |
| 26 | 28 | Petkov, Momchil | GM | BUL | 2526 | 6 | 46 | 30,75 | 9 |
| 27 | 68 | Vergara Anton, Diego | IM | ESP | 2425 | 6 | 46 | 30.50 | 9 |
| 28 | 21 | Nogerbek, Kazybek | GM | KAZ | 2544 | 6 | 45.5 | 32,25 | 9 |
| 29 | 44 | Fernandez Guillen, Ernesto J. | IM | CUB | 2474 | 6 | 45.5 | 32,00 | 9 |
| 30 | 46 | Agmanov, Zhandos | IM | KAZ | 2470 | 6 | 45.5 | 31.50 | 9 |
| 31 | 61 | Habans Aguerrea, Javier | IM | ESP | 2441 | 6 | 45 | 30,25 | 9 |
| 32 | 60 | De Winter, Arthur | IM | NED | 2447 | 6 | 45 | 30,25 | 9 |
| 33 | 37 | Balakrishnan, Praveen | GM | USA | 2489 | 6 | 44.5 | 31.50 | 9 |
| 34 | 20 | Sethuraman, S.P. | GM | IND | 2548 | 6 | 44.5 | 30.50 | 9 |
| 35 | 12 | Jacobson, Brandon | GM | USA | 2570 | 6 | 44.5 | 29,00 | 9 |
| 36 | 71 | Krishna, C R G | IM | IND | 2415 | 6 | 44 | 28,25 | 9 |
| 37 | 48 | Ansat, Aldiyar | IM | KAZ | 2469 | 6 | 43.5 | 30.50 | 9 |
| 38 | 29 | Malek, Jan | GM | POL | 2516 | 6 | 43.5 | 30.50 | 9 |
| 39 | 51 | Royal, Shreyas | GM | ENG | 2465 | 6 | 43.5 | 29,75 | 9 |
| 40 | 38 | Cuenca Jimenez, Jose Fernando | GM | ESP | 2487 | 6 | 43.5 | 29,25 | 9 |
| 41 | 42 | Santiago, Yago De Moura | GM | BRA | 2475 | 6 | 43 | 30,00 | 9 |
| 42 | 66 | Lu, Miaoyi | IM | CHN | 2429 | 6 | 43 | 28,00 | 9 |
| 43 | 43 | Diaz Perez, Michel Alejandro | IM | CUB | 2474 | 6 | 42.5 | 29,75 | 9 |
| 44 | 9 | Kozak, Adam | GM | HUN | 2598 | 6 | 42.5 | 27,75 | 9 |
| 45 | 83 | Nurgaliyev, Sauat | IM | KAZ | 2387 | 6 | 42 | 28.50 | 9 |
| 46 | 57 | Dotzer, Lukas | IM | AUT | 2453 | 6 | 41 | 30,25 | 9 |
| 47 | 36 | Leenhouts, Koen | GM | NED | 2490 | 6 | 40.5 | 28,25 | 9 |
| 48 | 103 | Filgueiras, Nathan Felipe | IM | BRA | 2353 | 6 | 39 | 25,75 | 9 |
| 49 | 117 | Kostov, Deyan Samuil | FM | BUL | 2313 | 5.5 | 50.5 | 30.50 | 9 |
| 50 | 59 | Bilych, Oleksii | IM | UKR | 2452 | 5.5 | 49 | 30,75 | 9 |
| 326 players | |||||||||
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