First round games in the four main tournaments of the Moscow Open Festival were held on January 30, Saturday.

There are 187 participants in the main tournament “A”, 73 of which are grand masters and 49 - international masters.

The majority of the first round games ended as expected: top favorites beat their less known rivals. The exceptions are the games ended in a draw between Igor Kurnosov from Chelyabinsk vs Pavel Potapov from Salekhard, Muscovites Evgeniy Najer vs Gora Airapetian from Armenia and Farrukh Amonatov vs Eduard Gorovykh. We should also note that the top favorite of the tournament Sergei Rublevsky from Kazan was awarded with victory while his rival failed to attend the game.

Women also participate in the main tournament. The finalist of the Women’s World Championship Chinese Hou Yifan beat Russian FIDE master Alexey Potapov in the first round.

There are 399 participants in the tournament “B”, 31 of which have international titles.

More than 140 chess players are starting the tournament “C”, including 21 international grandmasters and 15 international masters. Among unexpected results we should mention the defeat of Svetlana Matveeva who was part of the Russian team of Ekaterina Frolova.

There are 130 participants in the tournament of veterans “of the same age as Victory” which is held within the festival and is dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic war. The oldest player is 91 years old! The merited chess masters Vitaly Tseshkovsky, Evgeni Vasiukov, Igor Zaitsev have started the fight. They all won their games in the first round.

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