The 17th International Chess Festival "Aeroflot Open 2019", finished in Cosmos Hotel on February 27.

Three open tournaments (A, B, and C) were played with 9 rounds according to the Swiss system.

101 players from 22 countries were taking part in the main "A" group. The Estonian Grandmaster Kaido Kulaots and Armenian Grandmaster Haik Martirosyan scored 7 points but Kulaots had better tiebreak. Indian Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran finished the tournament on clear third place with 6.5 points.

The winner of the main event has qualified for the super tournament in Dortmund (July 12-23, 2019). The "B" tournament had 126 participants from 17 countries. Ukrainian Grandmaster Stanislav Bogdanovich won the tournament with 7.5 points. International masters Tigran Harutyunian (2nd place, Armenia), Mahammad Muradli (3rd place, Azerbaijan) as well as Gms Daniil Lintchevski (4th place, Russia) and Sundar Shyam (5th place, India) finished one point behind the winner.

The "C" tournament (100 chess players from 19 countries) was won by the International master from Ukraine Timofey Iljin - 7.5 points. FIDE master Balgan Bayarmandakh (2nd place, Mongolia), Artur Gharagyozyan (3rd place, Armenia), and Elisha Lukin (4th place, Israel) are half a point behind.

The prize fund was EUR 120,000. There were also special prizes for the best performance among seniors, women and juniors in all tournaments amounting to EUR 2500 in total.

The organizers: Aeroflot, the Russian Chess Federation, and the Association of Chess Federations.

 
Estonian Grandmaster Kaido Kulaots (Photo by Eteri Kublashvili)