Kovalenko has the last laugh at the Keres Memorial

Igor Kovalenko has won the Keres Memorial-ACP Open after finishing half a point ahead of the field on 9/11. The Ukrainian-born Latvian grandmaster's crucial moment was winning a fierce battle against Peter Svidler in the penultimate round. He then eased to a 19-move draw with Gelfand in the final round, leaving Boris third while Day 2 hero David Howell finished on a high note to claim second place.

There were only three rounds on the final day in Tallinn, so let’s take them in turn.

Round 9: Top seeds hit the front

By rapid ratings the top seeds in the Keres Memorial-ACP Open were 1.Peter Svidler 2.Igor Kovalenko and 3.Boris Gelfand. They all suffered defeats on the first day of the event, but in Round 9 they completed their recovery in unison with impressive wins. In fact, it was an action-packed start to the day all round, with only three draws on the first 52 boards!

David Howell had been showing brilliant tactical vision in Tallinn, but against Peter Svidler his tendency to use too much time came back to haunt him. Despite winning the opening struggle Howell fell 10 minutes behind on the clock, let his edge slip, missed a chance to force a perpetual and finally went for a combination with a hole in it:

Black would be mating by force, if not for 32.Qb7+! and there’s nowhere for Black to hide the king for the tempo needed to give mate.

Gelfand sacrificed a pawn for powerful piece play and got an even greater gift in his opponent’s time trouble. Kamil Miton stumbled into a picturesque trap:

Igor Kovalenko, meanwhile, was perhaps the star of the round. He outplayed young JK Duda and then seemed to go wrong by exchanging off queens to enter an opposite-coloured bishop ending merely a pawn up. Duda is a very good endgame player, but Kovalenko didn’t give him a chance.

Another game not to miss was Surya Ganguly’s spectacular win over Pavel Tregubov:

Here Ganguly offered his queen with 20.Qxa8!, of course hoping to get a new one by promoting the h-pawn. Tregubov correctly responded 20…Rxh6! and mayhem ensued. The computer states White was winning after 21.e6+! Rxe6 22.Qf8 Nd4 23.Rh7 Kc6? 24.Rh6! but it was hugely impressive how Ganguly navigated all the complications.

Replay all the top games from the Keres Memorial using the selector below, where you can hover over a player's name to see all his or her results:

Round 10: Kovalenko wins by a whisker

Round 10 was all about one game – perhaps the fight of the event. 

A tense strategic struggle on the queenside ended with Kovalenko winning a pawn, but when Svidler whipped up a counterattack on the kingside Igor was forced once again to exchange queens for an opposite-coloured bishop ending. This time there were still rooks on the board, but Kovalenko went about his task with the same grim determination. Svidler, though, wasn’t backing down either, and seemed to have found a path to salvation:

53…e4! 54.Bxe4+ Ke5 and facing the threat of Rxf2+ Kovalenko went for 55.Kg4 Kxe4 56.f3 Kxe3 57.Kxh4:

Here any average chess player would play 57…Kxf3 without a thought… and be right! Svidler is no average player, though, and went for the cunning but mistaken 57…Kf4? After 58.Rf7+! Ke5 59.f4+ Kxd5 60.Re7! the black king was cut off and the f-pawn couldn’t be stopped. Svidler resigned a move later.

Round 11: An anti-climax and a thriller

Going into the final round Gelfand and Ganguly were half a point behind Kovalenko, but since they both had the white pieces it seemed we could expect a great battle. Alas, it took only 10 moves for Ganguly to agree a draw with Ferenc Berkes. 

That meant Gelfand could win the event by beating Kovalenko, but any opening advantage had gone when he took a draw on move 19, making 27-year-old Kovalenko champion. He celebrated with a selfie!

Kovalenko: "There's life in the old dog yet! The taste for first place is a drug!"

That wasn’t the end of the action, though. ACP President Emil Sutovsky’s chess element is chaos, but even he lost his bearings (or at least forgot the clock) in a wild position against David Howell. 

The real game of the round, though, was Svidler-Miton. 

After the defeat to Kovalenko Peter needed a win to challenge for the top places, and it made for a great spectacle:

When the dust settled Svidler was a pawn up, but his king was so exposed that a draw by perpetual check or repetition seemed likely. Instead Peter risked life and limb by pushing his c-pawn while his king went on walkabout:

It could have ended badly, but the king here went to f7, and after 55…Qc7+ 56.Re7 Qc8 the threat of mate with Qg8# meant there was nothing better than repeating moves. The computer instead flashes up an improbable variation where White is better - 55.Rd2 Re3+ 56.Kd7 Re5 57.Qd3 Qa7+ 58.c7 Qc5 – and the beautiful next move made it hard to resist mentioning:

The tweet could have been worded better… but then it might not have sparked off a super-GM discussion!

By our reckoning Peter still owes Anish one tweet    

So the final standings at the top looked as followed:

On Facebook Emil Sutovsky noted this event may be only the start of a new ACP Opens series:

The next major tournament is the traditional opener for the new year - the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee! Magnus Carlsen and Wei Yi are among the players in action from Saturday 16th January onwards.

See also:

• Official website
• All the games on chess24
• Top seeds tumble in Tallinn
• Howell blasts into Keres Memorial lead