The main organiser of the Vladimir Petrov Memorial, Latvian Grandmaster Alexei Shirov, has confirmed that the second tournament will take place in Jurmala on 15-17 February 2013, and will involve Alexander Morozevich and Viktor Korchnoi. On this occasion it won’t be divided into two parts but will instead be a 14-round Swiss event.

by Evgeny Atarov

The system for the inaugural event in 2012 was different: first there was a mass Swiss, with the four winners then being joined in a round robin final by stars of world chess. This time round Shirov has decided to change the format so that chess amateurs will be able to play side-by-side with the world’s best players – and in order to reduce the Swiss system’s element of chance to a minimum the tournament will be held over 14 rounds. That should satisfy both groups. Shirov commented in an interview at Chess-News:

Three days should be enough for rapid chess. Why not four? A very large number of chess fans complained last year that they couldn’t get time off work to start playing on Thursday. We took that into account: now the tournament will start on Friday evening and last until Sunday.

The organisers hope that the 2nd Petrov Memorial will attract at least a hundred players. As in the previous year the Memorial will take play in the municipal museum of Jurmala, a Baltic seaside resort about 25 km from the Latvian capital of Riga. Shirov added:

We already know that a group of Norwegian players is interested in the tournament, while I think the grandmaster line-up already consists of over 20 names…

A special role in the tournament has been assigned to Viktor Korchnoi. If his health allows the legendary “villain” will take part in the main tournament, while otherwise he’ll be its guest of honour and give lectures and commentate on the games.