The Aeroflot Open is by far the strongest Swiss System Open event in the world. Just to give you an example of how brutal the pairings can be, GM Mamedov with a rating of 2583 got paired up in the first round!
Here are the results of the top 10 boards:
1 GM Akopian, Vladimir 2700 – GM Mamedov, Rauf 2583 ½-½
2 GM Minasian, Artashes 2578 – GM Volokitin, Andrei 2674 1-0
3 GM Timofeev, Artyom 2664 – GM Balogh, Csaba 2575 1-0
4 GM Parligras, Mircea 2574 – GM Bologan, Viktor 2663 ½-½
5 GM Amonatov, Farrukh 2649 – GM Maletin, Pavel 2573 ½-½
6 GM Meier, Georg 2570 – GM Motylev, Alexander 2644 ½-½
7 GM Jobava, Baadur 2643 – GM Evdokimov, Alexander A. 2569 0-1
8 GM Khismatullin, Denis 2564 – GM Sutovsky, Emil 2642 ½-½
9 GM Predojevic, Borki 2641- GM Shomoev, Anton 2562 ½-½
10 GM Dyachkov, Sergej 2559 – GM Khalifman, Alexander 2638 ½-½
Fantastic, just fantastic – this open in Moscow! They play chess at the high level, far away from similar events elsewhere in the world.
Thank you for showing us this, even if they play in the shadow of Morelia/Linares these days!
Okay
Did you notice than only 1 of the top 10 ELO won their first round game ??