Holy stealth supertournament, Batman! Where did the Aerosvit tournament at the Foros spa in Crimea, Yalta, Ukraine come from? Ponomariov, Ivanchuk, Grischuk, Shirov, and eight other top players including young Ukrainian Olympians Karjakin and Volokitin. It's a 12-player round-robin and round one is on Saturday. Time control is the odd 120'+30". The lowest-rated player is 2660, making this one of the strongest events of the year. I guess I've been spending too much time watching the World Cup (dale Argentina!), working on this book with Kasparov (final days!), and hanging out with my new girlfriend (hubba-hubba!). I didn't hear anything about this powerful event, sponsored by Ukraine's largest airline, until around ten days ago.
Perhaps Aerosvit got into the game not to be outdone by the massive Aeroflot Open in Moscow that has been very successful by most metrics I'm aware of. Even the diligent folks in the message boards seem to have missed this one. (No poll, peach?!) Well, better late than never. I'll make sure to fly Aerosvit as often as I can. Do they go to the Bahamas? Can I get some of that Foros spa "ecologically pure water from an artesian chink"?
