The round one of Aeroflot Open chess tournament was called off 45 minutes after its start following a bomb scare in Moscow.

The players were asked to leave the venue, the Cosmos hotel. A number shopping centers, cinemas, theatres, railway stations were evacuated at the Russian capital on Tuesday. According to the Russian news agency Interfax, over 10,000 people were evacuated in the city.

The All India Chess Federation said that the players were moved to a nearby school: “All the people in the hotel were evacuated to a nearby school. Chess players were forced to interrupt the game and leave the hall,” AICF said in a release.

“The hotel [Cosmos hotel has been inspected. After confirmation from hotel management, the players have started heading back to the hotel. Indian players are under the care of the All India Chess Federation management. AICF is working closely with the Indian embassy in Moscow. Embassy officials are in the hotel meeting Indians.” </s> Shortly after the start, the first round of the Aeroflot Open has been canceled due to a bomb threat at the venue, Hotel Cosmos in Moscow. The round has been postponed until tomorrow.

The traditional Aeroflot Open, the super-strong open tournament sponsored by the Russian national airline company, started today at 3 p.m. local time. With top seeds Wei Yi (China), Vladimir Fedoseev (Russia) and Wang Hao (China), the top 10 boards of the round looked like this:

Bo. No. Name FED Rtg Result Name FED Rtg No. 1 51 GM Moroni Luca Jr 2567 GM Wei Yi 2733 1 2 2 GM Fedoseev Vladimir 2715 GM Petrosyan Manuel 2564 52 3 53 GM Fier Alexandr 2561 GM Wang Hao 2714 3 4 4 GM Dubov Daniil 2703 GM Abdusattorov Nodirbek 2560 54 5 55 GM Karthikeyan Murali 2560 GM Kovalev Vladislav 2703 5 6 6 GM Mamedov Rauf 2703 IM Lomasov Semyon 2559 56 7 57 GM Lalith Babu M R 2556 GM Inarkiev Ernesto 2692 7 8 8 GM Nabaty Tamir 2688 GM Santos Ruiz Miguel 2554 58 9 59 IM Tsydypov Zhamsaran 2547 GM Korobov Anton 2687 9 10 10 GM Safarli Eltaj 2681 GM Hakobyan Aram 2545 60

You can replay these games at the Chess.com/events Aeroflot Open page.

However, about 40 minutes into the round the games were aborted and the players were instructed to leave the building, along with the arbiters, organizers and other hotel guests. As it turned out, the hotel had received a phone call with a bomb threat.

"Of course I am not sure yet, but most likely it was just phone terrorism," said Mark Gluhovsky, an official of the Russian Chess Federation and playing himself in the B tournament. "Other hotels and hospitals also received calls."

The Russian capital has been flooded with fake bomb calls recently. Last week, the Russian news agency Interfax reported that the city’s emergency services received nearly 300 bomb threats, resulting in the evacuation of about 50,000 people (more about this in English at the Washington Post).

GM Jorden van Foreest said that the hotel had been closed for about 3.5 hours. Back in his hotel room, he told Chess.com: "My opponent was thinking and suddenly everyone heard an intercom message about an evacuation. Some people stopped the clocks and stood up, but the arbiters told us to continue playing."

However, half a minuter later the message returned, and all the players were sent outside. "It was pretty cold especially for players who didn't bring warm clothes," said Van Foreest. "We quickly heard from some Russian grandmasters that it was a bomb phone call."

The same round, with the same pairings, will be played tomorrow at 3 p.m. Some players who had favorable opening positions won't be thrilled about what happened.

"I had played a nice novelty in the Volga Gambit which is now worthless," joked Gluhovsky.

Somewhere during the tournament the players will need to play a double round to catch up with the tournament schedule.

Gluhovsky: "For the B and C tournaments, two rounds on one day will not be a big problem, but in the A group, with a seven-hour time control, that's going to be tricky." </s> Find the right combination! ChessBase 15 program + new Mega Database 2019 with 7.6 million games and more than 70,000 master analyses. Plus ChessBase Magazine (DVD + magazine) and CB Premium membership for 1 year!

Special attention will be paid to Intermediate Moves, Quiet Moves, Sacrifices on Empty Squares, Mating Patterns, Ignoring Opponents Threat, Calculation in Defence and Method of Comparison. Plus 50 interactive examples to test your knowledge.

2/19/2019 – After a bomb threat the first round of the Aeroflot Open had to be aborted 45 minutes after the start of the games. The Cosmos Hotel, the venue of the Aeroflot Open, was evacuated. Moscow had to cope with various bomb threats this afternoon, and shopping centers, cinemas, and theatres were evacuated. Thousands of people are affected.

Bomb alert in Moscow

In Moscow this afternoon there were anonymous bomb threats to numerous shopping centres, cinemas, railway stations and hotels. According to the Russian news agency Interfax, there was a wave of anonymous phone calls with threats. As a precaution, over 10,000 people were evacuated from the buildings concerned.

Such a wave of threats had already occurred in Russia last September. At that time, 1.4 million people were affected. The Russian intelligence service FSB identified "Russians abroad" as the perpetrators. The Russian authorities are reacting very cautiously to all bomb threats since an attack in the St. Petersburg subway in March 2018 caused 18 deaths and countless injuries.

Через 45 минут после начала 1 тура "Аэрофлот Опен" в гостинице "Космос" была объявлена экстренная эвакуация. Первый тур отменен. Подробности последуют в репортаже на нашем сайте pic.twitter.com/uOSMBruA19 — RCF (@ruchess_ru) February 19, 2019

Also affected is the Cosmos Hotel, where the Aeroflot Open started today. Round 1 had to be stopped after 45 minutes because of the bomb threat.

According to unconfirmed information from Moscow tomorrow a double round (rounds 1 and 2) will be played. </s> It’s not quite the cold war revisited. But over the past two weeks the world chess No 1, Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, has been doing battle against a Kremlin-backed Russian grandmaster who fervently supports Crimea’s annexation and the man who did it, Vladimir Putin.

On Wednesday the World Chess Championship in New York reaches its conclusion when Carlsen plays a series of quickfire games against his challenger Sergey Karjakin. The sudden death denouement comes after a series of sometimes lacklustre draws and a single win each, with the players tantalisingly tied on Monday with six points.

The match has invited comparisons with the 1972 clash between the American Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, the Soviet Union’s defending world champion. Fischer famously won, dealing a blow to the Kremlin’s use of chess as an ideological weapon and its belief in communist superiority over capitalism.

Their last match on Monday ended with a draw after just 35 minutes and 30 moves, an outcome that disappointed fans and chess experts alike. The grandmaster Susan Polgar observed that it was “as exciting as watching clothes dry”, while Short tweeted: “If the 12th game ... were a restaurant dish, I would send it back to the chef.”

“We’re not at the penalty stage yet. We’re at extra time,” Carlsen said after Monday’s match, making a football analogy. “I understand if sometimes both teams are not trying to score in the last minute of regulation that can be frustrating but also having extra time is exciting.”

After launching an aggressive attack in game eight, only to eventually lose, Carlsen stormed out of an obligatory press conference. Latterly, he has appeared more relaxed. Wednesday’s tie-breaker starts with four rapid games, with an initial time limit of 25 minutes per player. If the deadlock continues there will be an “armageddon game”, in which white has five minutes and black four. Karjakin – who starts with black, if it gets that far – will only have to draw to win the title.

The historical analogy may be overblown but there is no doubt the 2016 world championship has a 21st century political frisson. Karjakin – who is 26 – was born in Crimea. At the time the peninsula was part of Ukraine. A prodigy, he played for Ukraine’s chess federation before defecting to Russia and becoming a citizen in 2009.



According to British grandmaster Nigel Short, Karjakin is an outspoken supporter of Russia’s president: “I like Sergey. He’s stayed at my home before. I would describe him as a political opportunist.” In 2014 Karjakin posted a photo on his Instagram account showing him wearing a T-shirt with Putin’s face on it and the patriotic message: “You don’t dump your own [people].”

“Karjakin is totally backed by Putin and the Russian machine,” Short said. “The state wants him to do well. My original prediction was a narrow victory for Carlsen. We knew Karjakin was tough, and very good.” Carlsen had been “slightly off his game” but was still the favourite to win and is the number one at “rapid” format play, Short added.

The championship is being staged in New York for the first time since 1995. The choice of venue is also political - following years of simmering US-Russia tensions, and given the pro-Putin proclivities of president-elect Donald Trump, whose Manhattan home is a cab ride away. One of those spotted in the VIP chess room with views of Brooklyn bridge has been Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s ubiquitous press spokesman.

One person is missing. That is Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the Russian president of Fide, the world chess federation. Ilyumzhinov – who once claimed that aliens took him for a ride in their spaceship – has long performed the role of informal Kremlin emissary. He has met dictators including Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadaffi.

In late 2015 the US treasury department added Ilyumzhinov to a list of sanctioned Russians. It accused him of providing banking services to Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad. Ilyumzhninov has said this doesn’t stop him from travelling to the US. He has yet to turn up, though.

Chess federations from western countries including the US, England, and Germany have repeatedly tried to topple Ilyumzhinov from Fide’s top job. In 2014, Ilyumzhinov defeated his latest rival, the former world chess champion and Putin critic Garry Kasparov. Karjakin said he backed Ilyumzhinov and told Russian media that Kasparov’s views were “ultra-radical”.

Carlsen, meanwhile, is no cold war hawk. Rather, at 26, he is a cool young man who became a grandmaster at 13 and who dominates the world’s pre-eminent mind sport, winning the world championship in 2013. His chess rating – 2882 – is the highest ever. Carlsen has a cult following at home in Norway where his games are being live-screened. He has modelled for the Dutch clothing brand G-Star Raw.

Even for Carlsen the 2016 world championship has had moments of strain. According to Short, Carlsen enlisted the help of Microsoft to protect his computer from hackers. “Russian hackers are good at it. You are basically finished in a match like this if your analysis is available to your opponents,” Short explained. Karjakin had taken similar defensive measures, he suggested.

The game of chess has changed dramatically in recent years. Decades ago there was no live-streaming, with chess enthusiasts only able to follow matches by reading the next day’s paper. Now global spectators can follow matches live (for a $7 fee, payable to the murky organisation which owns chess rights, Agon) and can feed each move into powerful chess programs. “Even an idiot can to some degree follow what is going on,” Short said.

Phil Ehr, the former chief executive of the English chess federation, said the focus on Wednesday as the world championship reaches its dramatic end should be on chess, not international relations. “People in the west will root for Carlsen. People elsewhere will root for the Russian guy. It’s isn’t a big deal,” Ehr said, adding: “If Karjakin prevails good on him.” </s> Forty-one people on board a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane, including at least one child, were killed after the aircraft caught fire during a bumpy emergency landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport Sunday. Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case and was looking into whether the pilots had violated air safety rules.

Television footage showed the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash bouncing along the tarmac before the rear part of the plane burst into flames. Many passengers onboard SU 1492 then escaped via the plane's emergency slides that inflated after the hard landing. — The plane, flying from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Murmansk, had been carrying 73 passengers and five crew members, Russia’s national aviation watchdog said. — The pilots requested to turn back shortly after taking off at 6:03 p.m. Moscow time. Radio traffic reportedly died after unconfirmed reports that the plane was hit by lightning. The Flightradar24 tracking service showed the plane had circled twice over Moscow before landing after just under 30 minutes in the air.

— Only 37 out of 78 people on board had survived, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement, meaning 41 people had lost their lives. Aeroflot said the Superjet’s engines caught fire after landing. — Some passengers delayed the evacuation process by attempting to remove their carry-on luggage from the overhead compartments, preventing passengers near the tail end from escaping, a source with knowledge told Interfax. — No official cause has been given for the disaster. Investigators say they are considering several leads, including insufficient qualifications of the pilots, air traffic controllers or aircraft inspectors; technical malfunctions; and poor weather conditions. — Authorities are considering equipment failure from a lightning strike as the primary cause of the disaster, an unnamed source with knowledge of the incident told Interfax on Monday. Emergency officials had issued a storm warning in parts of Moscow for Sunday afternoon and evening. — Aviation experts have begun analyzing one of three flight data recorders, Transport Minister Yevgeny Ditrikh told reporters on Monday.

— More than 40 flights have been rerouted to neighboring airports as of Monday morning, most of them to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, Interfax reported. — Sheremetyevo continues to operate on a single runway 18 hours after the disaster. — The airport’s online table shows several delays and cancellations for both domestic and international arrivals. Only one departing flight has been canceled.

— Valery Postnikov, director of the Society for Independent Accident Investigations: "There are not enough of them [Sukhoi Superjet aircrafts] to talk about their reputation. If I am not mistaken, there are a little more than 100 of them in use now. Until yesterday, there was only one disaster in Indonesia [in 2012]. No one has determined exactly why yesterday's crash happened yet. I wouldn’t rule out the pilot's error as a cause. The problem was definitely not related to the aircraft itself. The problem is [likely] related to the organization of after-sale service, air traffic communication, whether there was a prediction and whether there was danger from a thunderstorm. I think this catastrophe may affect Aeroflot, but not the Sukhoi Superjet, at least for now."

"The plane is good, pilots praise this plane. There are failures we cannot predict. In this case, it has nothing to do with the aircraft itself. [The Sukhoi Superjet] has problems, just like all young aircrafts do. But the problem is with the organization around these aircrafts, and something must be done about it. Any crash is bad both for the company and for the aircraft. But what can we do? We will continue to fly and live."

"Aeroflot is recognized as a top company and the Sukhoi Superjet is recognized as a terrific airplane. The plane itself is certified by many organizations; it has a very good reputation. This is [the Sukhoi Superjet]’s first accident during commercial use. It is an extraordinary tragedy. It could take weeks before we understand what happened. The pilots did a terrific job. The passengers' videos taken inside the plane could have slowed down the evacuation process and many passengers could have lost their lives because of that – but we do not know. I think there will be an impact [on the company] but international travelers will continue to use Aeroflot, it is a very good airline."

— Sunday’s disaster is the first major deadly incident for Aeroflot since 2008, when 88 passengers and crew were killed after its Boeing 737 caught fire and crashed in Perm. — The Superjet entered service in 2011 and was the first new passenger jet developed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. It has been hit, however, by sporadic concerns over safety and reliability, including a December 2016 grounding after a defect was discovered in an aircraft's tail section. Another Superjet 100 was decommissioned after it rolled off the runway in Russia's Far East republic of Sakha in October 2018. — During a demonstration flight to woo potential buyers in Indonesia on May 9, 2012, an experienced Russian pilot lowered altitude and hit the side of a mountain. Information recovered from the Sukhoi Superjet 100's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder indicated that the pilot in command was chatting with a potential buyer in the cockpit just before the plane slammed into Mount Salak. — The burned-down aircraft itself previously suffered a malfunction when its flaps failed to open on landing in January 2018, an unnamed aviation industry source told the Kommersant business daily. — Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry does not plan to ground its Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft after Sunday’s crash landing, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited the ministry as saying. Transport Minister Yevgeny Ditrikh later told reporters Russia sees no reason to ground its domestic-made aircraft. </s> ARMAGEDDON looms in the Chess World Championship after the most dramatic title showdown in recent memory crashed to another grinding halt in the final scheduled match.

The World Chess Federation Championship between American challenger Fabiano Caruana and Norway's champion Magnus Carlsen has already become the first title showdown between grand masters that's failed to record a deadlock-busting victory across the 12 classic games scheduled.

Every previous world championship showdown since 1886 - 132 years ago - has witnessed some kind of breakthrough, but Caruana and Carlsen remain deadlocked after more than 50 hours of play over nearly three weeks inside London's The College of Holborn theatre.

That doesn't begin to tell the story of pure drama.

The showdown was first plunged into scandal when a three-minute video leaked online showed secrets of Fabiano's championship training camp in St Louis.

Reigning champion Carlsen then showed up for Game 9 sporting a black eye which he'd suffered during a weekend amateur football game. He needed to be cleared for concussion by his own medical team before the championship was allowed to continue.

The very next game Carlsen inexplicably dropped his bundle when he had been on the verge of a famous victory. His one mistake allowed Caruana to sneak through for another draw.

The 27-year-old admitted he "blew it". Grand masters around the globe declared Carlsen may have been suffering the affects of concussion.

In Game 12, Carlsen seized control of the game after Caruana switched to the so-called Petrov Defence and was picked apart by his Norwegian rival. Again, the chess world was shocked as Carlsen proposed a draw with Caruana after 21 moves. Victory had been within his grasp.

"I'm very shocked by Magnus's decision," Hikaru Nakamura, an American grand master, told chess.com at the time.

All the delicious drama from the 12-drawn regulation games is simply the appetiser to the main event of mayhem predicted for when the championship heads into sudden death on Thursday morning (AEDT).

The match - which is taking place behind soundproof glass on a stage in London - now comes down to a series of rapid games.

Opinion across chess commentators is divided ahead of the sudden death showdown - but many already predict the world championship will be decided by an "Armageddon" tiebreaker.

The two players will first face off in four games with rapid time controls - 25 minutes plus 10 additional seconds per move for each player.

If the match remains deadlocked after that, they will play a series of five-minute games.

And if that fails to produce a winner, the match will end in an "Armageddon" game - where the player with the white pieces gets five minutes on the clock while the person playing black only gets four minutes, but a draw counts as a win for black.

An Armageddon match has never been used to decide the world championship in 132 years of recorded history. That is now likely to change.

Carlsen has drawn the white pieces for the sudden death round.

While Carlsen, defending his crown for the third time, is considered the higher ranked speed-round player, there are now question marks surrounding his mental state after his inexplicable peace offering in the 12th classic game.

"In light of this shocking draw offer from Magnus in a superior position with more time, I reconsider my evaluation of him being the favourite in rapids," former world champion Garry Kasparov tweeted.

"Tiebreaks require tremendous nerves and he seems to be losing his."

Even Caruana acknowledged he was "relieved" to be able to reach the tiebreakers after being on the ropes in the last game.

"When you feel like you're sort of on the brink of defeat, or at least you have a very dangerous position, then of course it's quite good," the American said.

Carlsen, though, remained confident in his ability to outplay the challenger in speed chess.

"I think I have very good chances obviously," the Norwegian said.

"But I don't know what's going to happen."

Nobody does, and that's why this showdown is the best thing in sport right now.

The winner will get 550,000 euros ($860,000), with the runner-up pocketing 450,000 euros ($700,000). </s> The team were flying to Rostov-on-Don for their second match, against Uruguay today, after they were thrashed 5-0 by Russia in the opening game of the tournament

The plane carrying Saudi Arabia's World Cup team suffered a fire in one of its engines as the players flew to Rostov-on-Don for their next match, the Saudi football federation said Monday. The aircraft landed safely after what one of the Saudi players called a simple malfunction.

"It was a small fire in one of the engines, the right engine, but the plane landed safely," association president Ahmad Al Harbi said. One of the Saudi players, Hatan Bahbir, said in a video on the federation's Twitter account: "We arrived safely and we are all fine... it was a simple malfunction'." In the video, someone off-camera asks him if he was scared. He replies: "No, no. Well, of course we were scared a bit, but thank God."

The Saudi Arabian Football Federation said in a statement it "would like to reassure everyone that all the Saudi national team players are safe, after a technical failure in one of the airplane engines that has just landed in Rostov-on-Don airport, and now they're heading to their residence safely". The team were flying to Rostov-on-Don for their second match, against Uruguay today, after they were thrashed 5-0 by Russia in the opening game of the tournament.

Catch up on all the latest sports news and updates here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever </s> Just two classical games to go, and the Magnus Carlsen v Fabiano Caruana world championship match seems inexorably headed towards speed tie-breaks next Wednesday. They are level at 5-5 in the €1m series at The College in Holborn, London after drawing the first 10 games, a deadlock record unequalled since official world championships began in 1886.

Both have had fleeting chances. The biggest fish which got away was in game eight, where Caruana’s opening novelty against the sharp Sveshnikov Sicilian gave him a dominating position where he missed 23 Rae1! Next turn there was still 24 Qh5! instead of the wimpish 24 h3? That would have been not just a win, but a classic to rank alongside Max Euwe’s Pearl of Zandvoort against Alexander Alekhine and Bobby Fischer’s sixth game against Boris Spassky.

What exactly happens if they reach 6-6? The tie-break format is two rapid games at 25 minutes each plus 10 seconds per move increment, then (if they are still level) two blitz games with five minutes each plus three seconds per move. If this finishes 1-1, then there are further two-game blitz mini-matches up to a maximum of 10 blitz games.

Only if they are still level after 12 classical and 12 rapid/blitz games does the fearfully-named Armageddon arrive. White has five minutes, Black four minutes, with a three-second per move increment starting at move 61. An Armageddon draw counts as a win for Black. In theory Carlsen or Caruana could win the match by drawing every classical, rapid and blitz game, then drawing with Black in Armageddon, but from where we are now this is still a very remote long odds against chance.

If it comes to tie-breaks, Carlsen has much higher rapid and blitz ratings than his opponent and has never lost a play-off. In one of the post-game press conferences, Caruana disputed that he is the speed underdog, but it is hard to forget his catastrophic 25 defeats at the Grand Tour rapid/blitz in Paris and Brussels this summer or how he was crushed 20.5-6.5 by Levon Aronian in the chess.com speed knockout.

So although Carlsen will surely make a serious winning attempt with his final White in Saturday’s game 11, there is also an argument for Plan B, namely to eschew all risk at the end as he did against Sergey Karjakin in 2016 and head for the tie-breaks.

When the match does finally end, the winner will receive the plaudits, the traditional laurel wreath from the new Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich, prize money of €600,000 or €550,000 (depending on whether it goes to tie-breaks) ,and a guaranteed minimum two-year reign until the next challenger arrives in 2020. But what about the loser?

For Caruana, it will not be so bad. Having got extremely close and proving himself Carlsen’s equal at match play, he has every incentive to aim for another title shot in 2020 when he will be only 28 years old. His 2832 rating is virtually equal to Carlsen’s 2835, he can realistically plan to capture the No 1 global rating soon. Carlsen has been top dog in the ratings for seven years and has said that he values No 1 almost as much as the official crown.

Caruana will also have plenty to look forward to in his home city of St Louis and for the US team, which will aim to capture the world team championship and regain the Olympiad gold medals from China in 2020. America’s billionaire benefactor Rex Sinquefield, who has made St Louis a global capital for international chess, is always looking for new ideas. Would Carlsen and Fide agree to a Carlsen v Caruana rematch in St Louis in 2019? Giving the champion the right to accept a challenge from the No 1 in the rankings is at least an arguable concept.

It will be much more traumatic if Carlsen loses his crown. While the US has other elite grandmasters and rising talents, Norway’s chess boom is based on Carlsen, whose laconic down to earth personality has made him a national hero.

When NRK, the government-owned broadcaster, made the bold decision in 2913 to televise live the whole of Carlsen’s first match against Vishy Anand, critics said that it would be like watching paint to dry. But for the final game in Chennai the TV audience was 355,000. In 2014 for the return series in Sochi, 572,000 watched the decisive game. In 2016, when Carlsen and Karjakin played their speed tiw-breaks in New York, 768,000, 56% of the national TY audience, saw the programme.

NRK makes it a spectator sport. The live show has audience participation, a meter to show thecomputer odds and a light approach, plus a resident grandmaster. In the last resort it works because Carlsen wins the matches at the end. But if he loses, and has no further chance for at least two years, the chess boom will probably falter, as it did in Britain and the US in the 1970s when Fischer refused to meet Anatoly Karpov.

Carlsen would have to cope with his own form crisis. Asked to name their chess hero, Caruana answered “Fischer” while Carlsen replied “myself, four or five years ago”. Some of his sharpness and accuracy has diminished and he has become like Mikhail Botvinnik after the 1040s, primus inter pares rather than supremely dominant. He might struggle to win the 2020 candidates ahead of the Azeri world No 3 Shak Mamedyarov and China’s’s No 4 Ding Liren. Much is at stake. Game 11 on Saturday, game 12 on Monday, and tie-breaks if needed on Wednesday are the dates for your diary.

The world women’s championship, a 64-player knock-out, went to a final tie-break on Friday, China’s Ju Wenjun, who kept her crown with a 5-3 score against Russia’s Katervna Lagno, is ranked No 2 behind Hou Yifan, who is working for a masters degree from a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford. Fide is changing the format of the women’s event, so that Ju will keep her title until 2020 and then meet the winner of an eight-player candidates.

Ju, needing to win the fourth classical game with Black, surprised her opponent with 5...e5!? which she followed up with f7-f6, rooks on the g file, and an attack on the white king. Black fluffed her first opportunity (19...c4! 20 Nxg6 Bxd6 21 dxc4 Be6 and the attack will break through) but received a second chance by 28 Kh1?? when 28 Qh5! is level Ju aeized on the mistake by rerouting her bishop to the long white diagonal by 28...Bc8! which led to a speedy mating attack. </s> SAINT PETERSBURG: The blood-drenched bodies of the wounded lay on stretchers as Saint Petersburg residents stayed glued to their mobile phones, desperate for news from loved ones.

Russia’s second city is in shock and mourning after Monday’s suspected terror attack at a busy metro station.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said 20-year-old student Sergei Antonov, visibly shaken after the blast that killed 10 people and injured many more. “It looks like an attack.”

A helicopter circled above the Technological Institute metro station, a key transport hub, where the blast took place at 2.40 pm (1140 GMT).

The “act of terror” theory was boosted when an unexploded bomb was discovered and made safe at a second metro station in the city centre.

“I’ve called everyone I know in case they were in the metro, thank God they’re all alive,” said Svetlana Anatolievna near the scene.

Television images and social media posts told of the horror that unfolded underground: a train carriage with the doors blown out, dead bodies on the platform, passengers trying to pull victims from the rubble.

“There was lots of smoke and the smell of burning. Everyone panicked and was running and crying,” said one 19-year-old man who did not want to give his name.

He managed to get up the escalator and onto ground level where “the station guard got everyone out and told us the station was closed.”

For some passengers, there was panic as they struggled to get out of the train. “The doors wouldn’t open. Through the window I saw four bodies,” pensioner Viatsheslav Vesselov told AFP.

Several main roads were closed to regular traffic to allow ambulances to ferry the dozens of injured to hospitals, and the metro system stayed shut for several hours.

For the people of Saint Petersburg it was a brutal return to tragedy.

In October 2015 an Airbus plane — mostly carrying holidaymakers heading home to the city — was brought down by a bomb shortly after taking from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. All 224 people onboard were killed.

Saint Petersburg authorities have announced three days of mourning following the carnage on the metro, and by evening flowers and candles were piling up outside the Technological Institute metro station as well as the Sennaya Ploshchad stop, which the ill-fated train left shortly before the explosion.

“Any one of us could have died in the place of these people,” said Andrey Semenov, 21. “It’s awful, no one is safe.”

Marina Ilina, 30, said her thoughts had quickly flown to the safety of her loved ones.

“I immediately began thinking about my child,” she said. “Now I’ll think twice before taking the metro. Before, in Saint Petersburg, we thought that this kind of thing didn’t concern us. The town is threatened. We must be very vigilant.”

Security has been boosted at stations and airports throughout the country following the blast. – AFP
The opening round of the Aeroflot Open, an international open chess tournament, is postponed a day after 45 minutes of play as a bomb threat locks down the Moscow hotel hosting the event. Similar threats also shut down cinemas, shopping centres, and theatres; thousands are evacuated.