After five rounds the Cup of Russia tournament is led by the grandmaster from Moscow Ernesto Inarkiev. His excellent personal match for the lead with Anton Korobov was carried out in a solid positional manner. Across them were two other bouts, also included in the recap, noted for the wild attacks on the king.

The Moscow Open, 11th International RSSU Cup is inevitably approaching its finish. It’s very hard to predict the winners in almost all the tournaments of the festival.

We can talk about two leaders in the Men’s Cup of Russia Stage after today’s game day. Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia) caught the sole leader of the competitions Ernesto Inarkiev (Russia). Both grandmasters scored 5 points. In the Round 6 Inarkiev finished his game with Rauf Mamedov (Azerbaijan) in a draw.  Nepomniachtchi won over Francisco Vallejo (Spain). 

The Moscow Open, RSSU Cup Director Alexander Kostiev told the editor of the site Eldar Mukhametov about the additional events, organized in the frames of the festival: seminars, master-classes, and the forthcoming FIDE and ECU Commissions meetings.

- Maybe we can talk about the recognition of our achievements and activity as for the first time in the history of the Moscow Open three FIDE and ECU Commissions will meet in Moscow to discuss the strategy of the further development.

Only two rounds remain to be played by the participants of the RSSU School Champions’ Cup, Moscow Open 2015.

Satbek Akhmedinov (Kazakhstan) has suffered no losses so far in the U9 Boys’ group. Robert Safin (Naberezhnye Chelny), Sergey Gukhman (Tver), Ilya Makoveev (Gelendzhik), Artem Tyurin (Volgograd) and Lev Gofman (Mosow) are behind him from a distance of one point. 

Amina Kairbekova (Kazakhstan) has 7 points in the group of the youngest girls.

The duel attracting the most attention from spectators this round was the match Daniil Dubov – Vladimir Belous from the Student-grandmaster round-robin.

Young chess players gathered in the hall for commentary and engaged in sorting through the combinational lines resulting from the bold sacrifice of white's bishop.

The "playoff" games started in the Tournament A. The favorite of the race Ian Nepomniachtchi won over the Moscow Open-2008 winner Artyom Timofeev from Kazan in a very complicated game of the Round 5. He told the correspondent of the official website about this game.

- Artyom is a very strong opponent, a chess player of an extra class. However, recently he plays not so successfully, but, nevertheless, the game wasn’t expected to be easy.

In the opening he didn’t choose the main continuation as the answer to the Grunfeld defense, when the white is up a pawn, but in reality stands none the better.

The main tournaments of the Moscow Open, RSSU Cup passed the mid-way point today. Only two participants of the competitions have maintained a perfect score.

Russian Ernesto Inarkiev had five consecutive wins in the Men’s Cup of Russia stage. He prevailed against Anton Korobov (Ukraine) in the previous round and is the sole leader of the tournament. Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi and Boris Grachev, Xiu Deshun (China) and Rauf Mamedov (Azerbaijan) are left behind the leader with half a point less.

The famous chess theorist Evgeny Sveshnikov scored 5 points in five rounds in the Veterans’ 

Over the course of two days – Jan 31 and Feb 1 – an unusual biathlon called Shogi + Chess was held within the frames of the Moscow Open 2015, RSSU Cup. 25 players took part in the competitions. Athletes had to play one game in two kinds of chess with a split time control - Japanese shogi and classical chess.

The winner of the tournament is Moscow State Social University student Aleksandr Rusanov, who scored the maximum possible number of points. The second place is awarded to Igor Sinelnikov (Moscow), and the young player Danila Nafikov (Yamal-Nenets Autonomous region) is the third.

The grandmaster, coach and talented organizer Alexander Potapov has been the Head of the Polar Chess School named after Anatoly Karpov in Salekhard for 12 years already.  He’s been bringing his students to the Moscow Open since the establishment of the festival. The interviewer of the official website is talking to Alexander. 

- Alexander, you visit the Moscow Open every year. Why does the festival attract you and other devoted participants?

- If I’m not mistaken, our athletes participated in the all Moscow Open Festivals, starting with the first. 

The favorites of the Men’s and Women’s Cup of Russia Stages are the main characters of the creative report on the third round of the RSSU Moscow Open Cup 2015 by Alexander Kalinin . Their wins can serve young chess players as good examples of positional play.

Daniil Dubov prevailed against Vladimir Belous in the old master style and closely approached the leader of the Alexander Pochinok Memorial Men’s Student Grandmaster Tournament. We addressed several questions to the Moscow grandmaster.

- Daniil, congrats on the brilliant victory! Tell us about the key moments.
- Thank you. There was uncompromising struggle during the whole game: we both were playing for the win, as I started the game poorly and Volodya’s start was even worse. His opening play came as somewhat of a surprise. I know, there is such a line, but it's been a long time since I've studied it.

Dear Participants!

We draw your attention to the following change: the Tournament«A» Round 5 pairings has been changed starting from the board 75 and below due to a technical mistake. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Russians Ernesto Inarkiev and Aleksandra Goryachkina became individual leaders in the Men’s and Women’s Cup of Russia Stages within the frames of the Moscow Open 2015. They are the only players of 400 other athletes, who managed to win all four games.

17 athletes are half a point behind Inarkiev, including the ranking favorites of the competitions Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia) and Franciso Vallejo (Spain). 

Nine female players are chasing Goryachkina in the Women’s tournament.

The most part of the distance in the RSSU School Champions’ Cup within the frames of the Moscow Open is over.

After five rounds Satbek Akhmetdinov (Kazakhstan) and Robert Safin (Naberezhnye Chelny) have suffered no losses in the U9 Boys’ competitions. Stepan Prokhorov (Lipetsk), Leonid Lystsov (Pyatigorsk), Matvei Nikolaev (Leninogorsk) and Roman Sumilin (Moscow) are half a point behind the leaders.

Emilia Zavivaeva (Nizhny Novgorod) and Amina Kairbekova (Kazakhstan) have 5 points each in the tournament of the youngest girls. 

The present Champion of Russia told the correspondent of the Moscow Open official website about his start at the tournament and shared his plans for the current year.

- Igor, tell us about your start at the Moscow Open, please.
- The start was quite hard: I won one game playing as white and finished two other games with the draw result. I played as black in both of them. There was neither a chance, nor even a possibility of a chance in either of them. My opponents didn’t have a high ranking, but in spite of this fact they were playing effectively and it was felt, both of them have been working with some experienced grandmasters

A chess player from Kazakhstan, Guliskhan Nakhbayeva, started with three victories and is one of the leaders of the Tournament B – Women’s Cup of  Russia stage. Now everybody who wanted to find out more about this chess player from Kazakhstan will have such a chance.

- Guliskhan, congratulations on a great start! How can you describe your first three games?
- Honestly, the start is the most important for me. Very often I couldn’t start good, and then I had to catch up at the finish. That’s why I’m glad I started well here. 

The participants of the open tournaments of the Moscow Open have overcome one third of distance and the struggle is just started here. Nine athletes managed to stay unbeaten after three rounds in the Men’s Cup of Russia stage competitions. These are Russian Boris Grachev, Alexei Iljushin, Ernesto Inarkiev, Vladimir Zakhartsov and Vladimir Fedoseev, Ukrainian Anton Korobov, Chinese Xiu Deshun and brothers Maksat and Yusup Atabyev from Turkmenistan.

31 participants have 2.5 points at once.

The first rounds of the RSSU Mosow Open were full of surprises – many acknowledged favorites have suffered losses already. The constant observer of our website grandmaster Alexander Kalinin is speaking more of the instructive part of the games than of their sensational character.